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The worst woman in Sydney : the life and crimes of Kate Leigh / Leigh Straw.
LIBRA HV7175.S9 S77 2016
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Straw, Leigh.
- Language:
- Undetermined
- Subjects (All):
- Leigh, Kate, 1881-1964.
- Leigh, Kate.
- Female offenders--Australia--New South Wales--Sydney--Biography.
- Female offenders.
- New South Wales.
- Criminals--Australia--New South Wales--Sydney--Biography.
- Criminals.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- 264 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 21 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Sydney, N.S.W. NewSouth Publishing, 2016.
- Summary:
- Matriarch of the criminal underworld ...or the Robin Hood of inner Sydney? The legend of Kate Leigh, Sydney's famed brothel madam, sly grog seller and drug dealer, has loomed large in TV's Underbelly and every other account of Sydney's criminal history from the 1920s to the 1960s. But she has never had a biography of her own. Despite having more than 100 criminal convictions to her name, Kate Leigh is also remembered as a local hero, giving money to needy families and supporting her local community through the hard times of Depression and war. Here, novelist and historian Leigh Straw teases out the full story of how this wayward Reformatory girl from Dubbo made a fortune in eastern Sydney and defied the gender stereotyping of the time to become a leading underworld figure.
- Contents:
- 1 A Wayward Girl 19
- 2 Frog Hollow Thieves 41
- 3 Serving The Community 64
- 4 Sex and Snow 87
- 5 Razors and Rivals 118
- 6 Eileen Leigh 148
- 7 Surry Hills Matriarch 167
- 8 'Underworld Romance of the Century' 185
- 9 Remembering Kate Leigh 201.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 1742234798
- 9781742234793
- OCLC:
- 954250603
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