In 1896 Bissell published an essay called "The Mistaken Vocation of Shakespeare's Heroines," taking the form of a report of a lecture to suffragettes. The purported speaker launches an attack on the Elizabethan playwright Shakespeare for placing his female characters in unsuitable situations, where they are not allowed to demonstrate their true abilities. For example, instead of having Ophelia as his wife, Hamlet would have been much better served by the more forceful Lady Macbeth, while Macbeth himself would have been better served by Portia.