Flannery O' Connor occurs to me when I think of isolated women who produced an amazing body of work. I don't know that she would have chose such an isolated life if she wasn't extremely sick. I think the isolation helped her hone her craft. She is my favorite author of short stories. The Bronte SIster's work was an outgrowth of isolation or so I am told. I don't know anything about them or why and how they were cut off by society. I've read many of the significant novels of the period but I've never read one of the theirs and don't really know anything about them aside from the fact they lived a very sheltered life. My wife suggest Emily Dickinson, I don't know anything about her either but Wikipedia suggest that her isolation was entirely self imposed.