Many women novelists tell a story of female defeat. Nineteenth-century fiction is particularly full of women characters who cannot make peace with the options available to them in their society, characters who cannot fulfil their needs or resolve their conflicts. Rarely if ever do these protagonists find a form through which to tell others their story as (at least to some extent) their novel-writing creators did. Like their protagonists, Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton are often said to have failed in creating a “new plot” for “women's lives.” Yet the identification of writer and character should be entertained with caution. For Chopin and Wharton themselves, professional authorship meant redefining their position as women within turn-of-century American society. The novelistic enterprise also meant reaching an audience with their version of a woman's life - only partially a version of their own.