Abstract

From gun-toting Pansy Arlington, whose Palace of Pleasure provided years of dangerous excitement to colonial men on the Western Australian goldfields, to Puang Thong Simaplee, a young woman from Thailand arrested in a Surry Hills brothel only to die in Villawood Detention Centre before she could be deported, historian Raelene Frances draws on biographies, interviews and case-studies to present the first comprehensive history of prostitution in Australia.