Victoria Woodhull, Mary Wollstonecraft, Aimee Semple McPherson, Edwina Mountbatten, Margaret Argyll and Chanel were all women who dared. They had no time for what society said they could and couldn’t do and would see the world bend before they did.

In 1872 a mesmerising psychic named Victoria Woodhull shattered tradition by running for the White House. Had she won the ensuing spectacle would surely have rivalled that of our own era. Abhorring such flamboyance, Mary Wollstonecraft inspired a revolution of thought with her pen as she issued women’s first manifesto – still to be fulfilled.

From Aimee Semple McPherson, the first female preacher in America, to Coco Chanel, designer of an empire, these women became the change they wanted to see in society.

In Women Who Dared, Jeremy Scott pays tribute to them all with wit, verve and reverence.

Jeremy Scott became a full-time writer following a colourful career in advertising, as described in his acclaimed memoir Fast and Louche. He is the author of Dancing on Ice, Show Me a Hero, The Irresistible Mr Wrong and Coke: The Biography. He lives in Chelsea, London.