In society's view, she claimed, women writing for profit was equivalent to selling their wares (i.e., their bodies), and these writers thereby increased their sales.
But where Behn's viewpoint moved between the male gaze and female feeling, and Manley might satirise the Whigs for corruption, Haywood would reduce the scope of women's agency to the domestic, passive and punished if they rebelled.
She showed the transmission of the stories into French and thence to English, covering not only notable works such as Galland's Arabian Nights, but also less known ones from Eliza Haywood and Giovanni Paolo Marana.
A critic noted that while stories with narrative energy and good writing tended to be well-received, those that extravagantly adopted orientalist tropes (harems, castrations and their ilk), as exemplified by Haywood's History of the Christian Eunuch or James Ridleys' The Adventures of Urad, have travelled less well, despite Ballaster's championing.
She also set the stage for the various uses of the stories – social, religious or political commentary or satire, and expanded both the range of texts and sources across the two books.