Mary Frith (c. 1584 – 26 July 1659), alias Moll (or Mal) Cutpurse, was a notorious English pickpocket and fence of the London underworld.

The Life of Mrs Mary Frith, a sensationalised biography written in 1662,[3] three years after her death, helped to perpetuate many of these myths.

Mary's uncle, who was a minister and her father's brother, once attempted to reform her at a young age by sending her to New England.

Both works dwelt on her scandalous behaviour, especially that of dressing in men's attire, and did not show her in an especially favourable light, though the surviving play is fairly complimentary of her by contemporary standards.

[6] The Roaring Girl, while highlighting her qualities that were deemed improper, also depicted her as possessing virtue, such as when she attacks a male character for assuming all women to be prostitutes, and when she exhibits chastity by refusing to ever marry.

[a] Once a showman named William Banks bet Mary 20 pounds that she would not ride from Charing Cross to Shoreditch dressed as a man.

[5] In his letter, Chamberlain observes, "She wept bitterly and seemed very penitent, but it is since doubted she was maudlin drunk, being discovered to have tippled off three quarts of sack".

It is important to note that, at the time, women who dressed in men's attire on a regular basis were generally considered to be "sexually riotous and uncontrolled", but Mary herself claimed to be uninterested in sex.

[citation needed] She is recorded as being released on 21 June 1644 from Bethlem Hospital after being cured of insanity,[12] which may or not be related to the (possibly apocryphal) story that she robbed General Fairfax and shot him in the arm during the Civil War.

[15] She has been regarded as the "first female smoker of England"[16] and most images of her show her smoking a pipe, which was seen as something only men did during her time period.

[18] In one of her performances, Amends for Ladies which was featured at the Fortune Theatre in London, Frith played in stark contrast to the other female leads.