Includes bibliographical references.

Prologue, Why Me? -- Cheltenham, Melbourne, 1902 -- Brighton Beach, England, 1860 -- The West Pier, Brighton, 1869 -- A Visit, The Steine, 1869 -- Friendship, Brighton, 1871 -- Lovers, Brighton, 1874-1875 -- The Challenge, Brighton, 1875 -- Harriet Elphinstone Dick, Brighton, 1875 -- Leaving Home, Brighton to Gravesend -- Arriving, Melbourne, 1876 -- A Home, Carlton, 1876 -- Swimming, St Kilda, 1876 -- Christmas Dinner, Carlton, 1876 -- The Challenge, St Kilda, 1877 -- A Return Visit to England, 1878-1879 -- The Ladies Gymnasium, Melbourne, 1879 -- Consolidation, Melbourne 1879-1880s -- Notoriety, Melbourne, 1882-1884 -- The Tasmanian Connection Begins, Melbourne, 1881 -- Watershed Moment, The Call of the Wild, 1884 -- A Tree Change, Beaconsfield, 1883-84 -- Tuesday Evening, April Fools Day, 1884 -- The Train Wreck, Werribee, 1884 -- Abbotsford, Thursday, 3rd April 1884 -- The Steyne, Beaconsfield, 1883-87 -- On the Road, Beaconsfield, 1886 -- Under Pressure, Beaconsfield, 1886 -- An Imagined Summer, Beaconsfield, 1887 -- Alice?s Dream, Beaconsfield, 1887 -- Alice Changes Direction, Melbourne, 1888 -- Alice?s Restaurant, Melbourne, 1888 -- Love Ends, Melbourne, 1889 -- Goodbye Melbourne, Hello Sydney, 1890 -- Harriet?s New Gymnasium, Sydney, 1893 -- Afternoon Tea at Quong Tart?s Tearooms, Sydney, 1893 -- Meeting John McGarvie Smith, Sydney, February 1894 -- To Please a Man? Woollahra, 1894 -- This Man Is the Very Devil. Sydney, 1894 -- The Worst News in The World, Double Bay, 21 April 1894 -- The Funeral, South Head Cemetery, 23 April 1894 -- The Will, Double Bay, June 1894 -- Revenge, ?Lurlie?, July 1894 -- Alone, Sydney, 1894 -- Return, Melbourne, 1898-1902 -- Endnotes -- Afterword - Who was John McGarvie Smith?-- And what was his connection to the Anthrax vaccine?-- Endnotes to Afterword.

In the winter of 1875, two rebellious spirits travel from England to Australia. Harriet Rowell (age 22) and Alice Moon (age 18), were champion swimmers in a time when women didn?t go into the sea; they were athletic and strong in a time when women believed men who told them if they didn?t bind their bodies in whalebone corsets they would fall over or ruin their childbearing purpose; and they were in love in a time when many women were in love with each other but held such love secretly. In Australia, they will achieve their freedom and create a path for others to follow! With Alice?s wealth, they open a Women?s Gymnasium and begin to teach mothers and daughters how to be strong; daring them to throw off the shackles of fashion and social laws that bind their natural female bodies and minds. Harriet and Alice take on the world at a dangerous time for women?s freedom of expression. Love ends. Alice breaks free from Harriet?s life and pursues her own destiny with new friends, as an author living in Sydney. Harriet, rejected and in despair, sells up and futilely follows her and thus, while struggling to come to terms with their painful separation tragedy strikes. Alice, who all her life has laughed in the face of death and danger, is found dead in her bed. She is thirty-seven. Thrown into turmoil, her female friends build a wall of silence around the shocking death. Their suspicions rest upon the powerful, chauvinistic scientist, John McGarvie Smith with whom Alice had been working in her newfound capacity as a journalist. They leave a public accusation on her gravestone, a clue for a future woman to bring justice. I am that woman.