Caroline Norton is often cited by feminist scholars for her role in the battle for women's rights in the nineteenth century. On her separation from her husband, George Norton, in 1836, she faced the shocking reality of a woman's powerlessness when she was denied the right to see her three children. She also lost her inheritance; copyright earnings from years of publication; her clothing, jewelry, letters, and other personal possessions; and her reputation. George Norton's suit against the prime minister, William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, for adultery was the biggest event in London for 1836--the trial inspired Charles Dickens's "Bardell v. Pickwick" in The Pickwick Papers (1837), and Norton later became the model for the title character in George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways (1885) because of her involvement in political intrigue. She channeled her frustration and anger into tireless political lobbying, which resulted in the first feminist legislation to pass Parliament...