Literary women who love women often lament being "the only one" or consider themselves outside of nature, but in the 18th century this begins being transformed into a sense of monstrousness. Versions of Ovid's myth of Sappho's late-life conversion to heterosexuality begin to presage this shift in the early modern era. Though a straightforward reading of Ovid's tragic ending would be that heterosexuality was the death of her, it began to be framed as a retroactive punishment for her previous love for women.
Allan’s Wife (H. Rider Haggard)
19th century English adventure story (in the Allan Quatermain cycle) that includes a literally monstrous female character whose jealousy over the title character results in tragedy.
