The Mammoth Book of Heroic and Outrageous Women (Mammoth Books)

Astounding adventures, reckless courage, and fierce independence are hardly the exclusive preserve of men, as this intriguing and surprising collection shows: courtesans from Nell Gwynne to Madame de Pompadour; femme fatales such as the pistol-packing concubine Lola Montez and Clara Bow, the It girl who turned Hollywood into her own party; the outlaws Phoolan "the Bandit Queen" Devi and seafaring, ship-raiding Anne Bonney; and heroines from the ancient British Queen Boadicea to Nancy Wake, who, dressed as a man, led a bazooka-assault against a Nazi redoubt in World War II.