‘Zofloya or the Moor’, A Romance of the Fifteenth Century was written in 1806 by the English Gothic novelist Charlotte Dacre, (1771 or 1772 – 7 November 1825).  Writing under the pseudonym Rosa Matilda, the novel was highly criticized upon its publication, due to its provocative subject matter of adultery, murder and racial and religious themes. In all of her stories Dacre casts her female characters in strong early proto-feminist lights, competing with the male characterizations displayed by male writers in the novels of the early 19th century.  Her heroines display powerful, sometimes violent, sexual desires and aggressive ambition at a time that called for woman to be filled with decorum and good taste.