confinement
Bricked in, locked up, or sealed behind their own front gates.
The Woman Who Wrote From Inside a Wall
A bishop sealed her inside a stone room, and she stayed for forty years — then T.S. Eliot quoted her during the Blitz.
The Woman Who Covered the World in Polka Dots
She sent fourteen unsolicited watercolors to a stranger in rural Japan. That stranger was Georgia O'Keeffe, and she wrote back.
The Duke Who Went Underground
He built the largest ballroom in England and used it to roller-skate alone.
The Woman Who Practiced Madness in a Mirror
Nellie Bly spent one night practicing insanity in a mirror, then fooled every doctor who examined her.