"Women weren't supposed to take their lives into their own hands, light out by themselves, have independent, off-the-beaten path adventures. Nonetheless, throughout history there have been women who cast off the shackles of expectation, stepped out of the cave, and slashed their way into history. Elegant, witty, sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, always perceptive, Barbara Holland tells us the stories of women, famous and infamous, celebrated and unsung, who have stepped over the edge. Here are Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Bonnie Parker (of Bonnie and Clyde), Amelia Earhart, George Sand, Isadora Duncan, Mata Hari, Belle Starr, and their lesser-known sisters in adventure and spirit - Gertrude Bell, uncrowned queen of Iraq; Daisy Bates, Victorian anthropologist of the Australian aborigines; American pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read; Queen Jinjun of Angola. "--BOOK JACKET.