 We might concede that Cavendish is right that a fictional world can often be a welcome alternative to our actual everyday affairs (also Walters 2014, 167–168), but we might worry that she is overstating the case if she supposes that we can be just as fulfilled imagining a life with which we identify as we can by living it in fact. There is a difference between inhabiting a world of fictional characters – for example in an engrossing book or play – and inhabiting a world that represents our own longing for a life that has been denied to us. To inhabit the latter sort of world might just bring despair. Cavendish does not appear to think so, however, but she might also be supposing that there is pleasure in capturing for the record why a particular world has been cut off from us, rather than just allowing ourselves to dissolve into one of the lives that has been made available. She might also be supposing that we can achieve an afterlife of fame if we write about alternative worlds and what they have going for them, in a way that helps them to come to be. If there is an alternative world that is much more desirable than the one in which we find ourselves, a written record of it might have both a personal and a social impact.