Adult Autism Books

Just to be clear, do you mean 'characters showing unacknowledged autistic traits', like Sherlock Holmes? Also, by adult, do you mean adult in the sense of mortgages and income tax, or adult in the sense of sexual?

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I mean ‘characters showing unacknowledged autistic traits.’

In terms of adult, I specifically mean adult classic texts (i.e. not children’s books). I am particularly looking for female characters who are portrayed as being ‘mad’ but are likely autistic. 

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I mean ‘characters showing unacknowledged autistic traits.’

In terms of adult, I specifically mean adult classic texts (i.e. not children’s books). I am particularly looking for female characters who are portrayed as being ‘mad’ but are likely autistic. 

Mina from Dracula certainly isn't portrayed as mad, but she does come across as autistic to me- she seems to have special interests relating to trains and technology, she's very loyal, and she apparently only has one friend. I might be projecting quite a bit because I love that novel and she's one of my favourite characters, but in my opinion there's enough textual evidence to back up a reading of Mina as an autistic woman.

Thank you very much; this is really helpful 

Not a woman, but Silas Marner in the book of the same name, by George Eliot, strikes me as somewhat. autistic. Perhaps the woman the main character in Charlotte Bronte's 'The Professor' marries seems a little autistic. More modern novels, the main character in the Japanese novel 'Convenience Store Woman', who, if memory serves, takes on a male lodger to deflect all the social pressures to get a boyfriend, which is some heavy lifting masking-wise. Of course Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson's books.