Indeed, if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some think even greater.5 But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room.
