Don Juan and His Daughter is a study of the creative power of illicit desire. While Melville's Gay Father dealt with fathers' erotic feelings for their sons, here Tuman ventures into the realm of female longing. In sections one and three, the focus is on women's romantic feelings for their own fathers or male stand-ins: in works by Edith Wharton, Anais Nin, Joyce Carol Oates as well as Freud's study of Dora; and then in novels by Elizabeth Inchbald, Jane Austen, and Mary Shelley, as well as memoirs of Kathryn Harrison. In section two, the focus shifts to the desire for an otherwise...