Shropshire author writes about Victorian gangster
Since A Thousand Blows hit our screens, Mary Carr, the beautiful Victorian female gang boss, is in all the newspapers again. However, one local author has been researching her for the last four years and she says it is time people knew the real Mary Carr.
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“I haven’t seen one single newspaper story about her since A Thousand Blows was released that doesn’t contain historical errors,” Emma Woodhouse says. “None of these accounts of her life really portray her the way she really was.”
A former Blists Hill Museum demonstrator, Emma began researching Mary back in 2021.
“I was looking for a real piece of history for a fictional character to interact with in a novel I was writing,” Emma says. “I found Mary and I was hooked.”
This novel became Simple Twists of Fate, published by Holand Press in March 2025. However, Woodhouse just couldn’t let Mary go, researching her life in more detail to create her novel, Mary, Queen of the Forty, also published in March 2025 by Havisham & Webb.
“Mary, Queen of the Forty tells Mary’s life story in a historical fiction format, following D.S. Grey as he tries to piece together her life story before her most famous arrest in 1896,” Woodhouse says. “But when the novel was complete, I realised I hadn’t quite finished with her yet. I realised that I wanted to tell her life story in a way that gave readers all of the evidence, lay it out there for everyone to see exactly who she was, in non-fiction form. I approached Pen and Sword Books and they snapped up the idea.”
Emma's non-fiction book about Mary Carr will be published by Pen and Sword Books in 2026. Until then, Emma has some events lined up so that she can tell people all about Mary Carr and bust some of the myths created by the TV series. You can catch Emma on her library tour in April, where she will be talking about her books and presenting the trial details of Mary’s 1896 arrest. She will be hosting A Victorian Evening with Emma Woodhouse, at Shrewsbury Library on Tuesday, 15 April, 6.30-7.30pm; Bridgnorth Library on Wednesday, 16 April, 7-8pm, and Oswestry Library on Thursday, 17 April 6-7pm. Tickets cost £14 and include a copy of her book, The Prendergast Watch. Places can be booked on Eventbrite.
"People are welcome to come to the library talks in Steampunk and Victorian dress as well as normal dress," Emma says. "Let's make it an evening of books, history and a love of all things Victoriana."
Emma will also be speaking about Mary at the CFP Neo-Victorian Criminalities, Detection and Punishment conference at the University of Wolverhampton in June.
“Mary was quite an enigmatic lady, a woman who defied the social norms and who lived her life the way she wanted to live it,” Emma says. “I’m so excited to be able to share her life with readers, and to get to talk to people about her too!”
Mary, Queen of the Forty is available now from Blackwell’s, Waterstones and Amazon, and is available on Kindle.
Emma's other books, The Prendergast Watch and Simple Twists of Fate were both published by Holand Press in 2025. Both are available on Amazon and Kindle.
