Confident Women
Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion
Format:Paperback
Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Published:29th Apr '21
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A thoroughly entertaining and darkly humorous roundup of history’s notorious but often forgotten female con artists and their bold, outrageous scams—by the acclaimed author of Lady Killers.
From Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey to Frank Abagnale and Charles Ponzi, audacious scams and charismatic scammers continue to intrigue us as a culture. As Tori Telfer reveals in Confident Women, the art of the con has a long and venerable tradition, and its female practitioners are some of the best—or worst.
In the 1700s in Paris, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy scammed the royal jewelers out of a necklace made from six hundred and forty-seven diamonds by pretending she was best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette.
In the mid-1800s, sisters Kate and Maggie Fox began pretending they could speak to spirits and accidentally started a religious movement that was soon crawling with female con artists. A gal calling herself Loreta Janeta Velasquez claimed to be a soldier and convinced people she worked for the Confederacy—or the Union, depending on who she was talking to. Meanwhile, Cassie Chadwick was forging paperwork and getting banks to loan her upwards of $40,000 by telling people she was Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter.
In the 1900s, a 40something woman named Margaret Lydia Burton embezzled money all over the country and stole upwards of forty prized show dogs, while a few decades later, a teenager named Roxie Ann Rice scammed the entire NFL. And since the death of the Romanovs, women claiming to be Anastasia have been selling their stories to magazines. What about today? Spoiler alert: these “artists” are still conning.
Confident Women asks the provocative question: Where does chutzpah intersect with a uniquely female pathology—and how were these notorious women able to so spectacularly dupe and swindle their victims?
“Think serial killers are always male? This creepy, darkly humorous compendium of real-life tales will sho you otherwise—and keep you up at night” — People "Whether she's describing women pretending to be doctors, socialites, or just another nice lady who desperately needed help, Telfer dishes up their scandalous schemes for true-crime fans to relish." — Booklist "Readers who appreciate a well-executed sting will enjoy this thoroughly researched yet breezy guide to notorious women." — Library Journal "Grifters! Fake Heiresses! Phony Royalty! Imposter Chinese Princelings! Faux Ghostbusters and More! The brilliantly crazy conniving women in CONFIDENT WOMEN have a helluva lot of nerve—and I love it!" — Marisa Acocella, New York Times best selling author of Cancer Vixen, Ann Tenna and The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother “Telfer proves that you can stab, poison, and suffocate the predictable tropes about female killers and still write something salacious and entertaining.” — Caitlin Doughty, New York Times bestselling author of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity "Whether she's describing women pretending to be doctors, socialites, or just another nice lady who desperately needed help, Telfer dishes up their scandalous schemes for true-crime fans to relish." — Booklist “A wonderfully executed—no pun intended—historical account of female killers. Lady Killers is a thrilling character study of the most diabolically complex, fascinating female psychopaths in history.” — M. William Phelps, author of the New York Times bestselling Dangerous Ground: My Friendship with a Serial Killer "Readers who appreciate a well-executed sting will enjoy this thoroughly researched yet breezy guide to notorious women." — Library Journal “With a breezy tone and sharp commentary, Telfer draws out the tired stereotypes with just enough wit and humor to make the topic of female murderers enjoyable.” — Publishers Weekly “Here’s an interesting survey of female serial killers... given its dark subject matter, it’s surprisingly lively. A welcome addition to serial-killer literature.” — Booklist
ISBN: 9780062956033
Dimensions: 203mm x 135mm x 20mm
Weight: 277g
352 pages