The author is transported by the fairy Fantasia to the Elysian Fields, where she listens to the discourse of Diotima and meets Mathilda.

Mathilda tells her story, which closes with her death.

In the final draft this unrealistic and largely irrelevant framework is discarded: Mathilda, whose death is approaching, writes out for her friend Woodville the full details of her tragic history which she had never had the courage to tell him in person.
The title of the rough draft, _The Fields of Fancy_, and the setting and framework undoubtedly stem from Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished tale, _The Cave of Fancy_, in which one of the souls confined in the center of the earth to purify themselves from the dross of their earthly existence tells to Sagesta (who may be compared with Diotima) the story of her ill-fated love for a man whom she hopes to rejoin after her purgation is completed.[v] Mary was completely familiar with her mother's works.

This title was, of course, abandoned when the framework was abandoned, and the name of the heroine was substituted.
Though it is worth noticing that Mary chose a name with the same initial letter as her own, it was probably taken from Dante.

There are several references in the story to the cantos of the _Purgatorio_ in which Mathilda appears.