The assertions in the previous chapter hold that women like Cavendish, Behn, and their characters could write a world as effectively and vividly as any geographer. And both women authors continued to write while they could, despite any social and financial difficulties. The past fifty years has seen renewed and sustained critical and popular interest in the works and lives of these women writers, with academic texts, classes, and conferences examining their output, and fictional texts that reimagine their lives. But it is an inescapable fact that, in their time, these two writers were considered strange, even dangerous anomalies. Of Cavendish, Samuel Pepys writes that she was a ‘conceited ridiculous woman’. Behn became, according to Janet Todd, ‘a byword for lewdness’ who faced sharp criticism throughout her career. And while Behn has been lauded by more recent writers like Virginia Woolf as an important foremother in the history of women's writing, these later accolades did not help an often impecunious Behn in her lifetime, as she was often short of money, and most likely died in straitened circumstances. This reality brings to mind the suffering undergone by many of the women examined in this book, including characters, historical figures, and writers. Indeed, for all the geographic ingenuity they demonstrate, characters like Dido, Zenocrate, and Mariam arguably achieve their fullest power in death. The Isabel of Cary's History of Edward II wins political and martial victories in her story, but even a passing knowledge of the queen's history calls to mind her eventual sequestration and later notorious reputation.