Spooky Ladies

From séances to stage magic, Spooky Ladies reveals the rebellious women who used wit, spectacle and the supernatural to survive, scandalise and captivate the world. 

Spooky Ladies is a wildly entertaining and sharply insightful celebration of the clairvoyants, mediums, mind-readers and magicians’ assistants who dazzled audiences, scandalised sceptics and carved out lives on the fringes of polite society.

In this fascinating new work by the beloved chronicler of women’s lives, Kaz Cooke uncovers the extraordinary stories of women who conjured ghosts, delivered prophecies, read minds and performed miracles – whether through genuine belief, theatrical flair, calculated fraud or sheer survival instinct. From the Victorian séance parlours of the Fox sisters to the enduring legend of Bess Houdini, these women built careers in worlds dominated by men, using skill, spectacle and audacity to make their own way.

Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters – including Lady Conan Doyle, Helen Duncan, the last woman imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act, Adelaide Herrmann and the ‘Wild Colonial Girls’ of Australia’s spiritualist scene – Spooky Ladies explores the blurred lines between performance, belief, feminism and deception.

Rich with astonishing true stories and fabulous archival photographs, this is a spirited journey through the lives of women who ignored convention, embraced mystery and lived gloriously unladylike lives. By turns funny, thought-provoking and utterly spellbinding, Spooky Ladies asks whether today’s astrologers, TikTok witches and modern mystics are simply the latest in a long line of independent women making magic from their own ingenuity.

• Format: Paperback / softback
• Pages: 368
• Imprint: Scribner Australia
• Supplier: Harper Entertainment Distribution Services
• Subjects: Code HIS058000 (scheme 10), Code BIO022000 (scheme 10), Code OCC027000 (scheme 10), Women's history; Witchcraft; Witches; Feminist history; Spiritualism; Occult history; Female mystics; Modern witchcraft; Witchy culture; Astrology; TikTok witches; Victorian spiritualism; Mediums; Clairvoyants; Seances; Historical women; Forgotten women; Rebellious women; Women magicians; Stage magic; Australian women's history; Hidden histories; Female empowerment; Popular history; Gift for women, Code NHTB (scheme 93), Code VXW (scheme 93), Code DNBZ (scheme 93)