Sydney, Lady Morgan (?1783–1859) is best remembered as a novelist whose highly successful historical romances often dealt with sexual, religious and racial discrimination. This work, published in 1840, examines the role of women in history. Morgan originally planned to write four volumes, but owing to her ill health only the first two, focusing on the Old Testament and classical civilization, were completed. Morgan proposes the view that women were really the dominant sex that shaped human society. She criticizes the legal discrimination against women that persists even in an age when superiority is no longer defined by physical strength. In Volume 1 she focuses on 'savage' and 'semi-civilized' peoples, and examples of societies as described in the Old Testament. Morgan writes vividly and passionately about the indignities to which women are subjected by men.