Rosa Coote is a fictional dominatrix appearing as a stock character in a number of works of Victorian erotica, including The Convent School, or Early Experiences of A Young Flagellant (as the notional author) by William DugdaleHenry Spencer Ashbee (as Pisanus Fraxi), "Catena librorum tacendorum", 1885, p.244Annalisa Di Liddo, "Alan Moore: Comics As Performance, Fiction As Scalpel", Great Comics Artists Series, Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009, , p.179Steven Marcus, "The other Victorians: a study of sexuality and pornography in mid-nineteenth-Century England", Transaction Publishers, 2008, , p.76 and "Letters to a Lady Friend" or "Miss Coote's Confession" in The Pearl.Henry Spencer Ashbee (as Pisanus Fraxi), "Catena librorum tacendorum", 1885, p.344Peggy J. Kleinplatz, Charles Allen Moser, "Sadomasochism: powerful pleasures", Haworth Press, 2006, , p.60Claudia Nelson, Michelle H. Martin, "Sexual pedagogies: sex education in Britain, Australia, and America, 1879-2000", Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, , pp.24,27 Henry Spencer Ashbee writes of The Convent School that "The book is not altogether badly written; no part of the narrative however is attractive".
The surname "Coote" is taken from the historical General Sir Eyre Coote, who was disgraced in a flogging scandal in 1815:John Chandos, "Boys together: English public schools, 1800-1864", Hutchinson, 1984, , pp.236-7R. G. Thorne, "The House of Commons, 1790-1820, Volume 3", Boydell & Brewer, 1986, , p.499 in "Miss Coote's Confession" the general is stated to be Rosa Coote's grandfather. The character is probably based on the real-life Theresa Berkley who ran a brothel in Soho in the 1830s.Iwan Bloch, William H Forstern, "Sexual life in England, past and present", F. Aldor, 1938, pp.353,361
The character reappears in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. She is Headmistress of the Correctional Academy for Wayward Gentlewomen, where the League discover Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man, impregnating her students (who believe he is the Holy Spirit), including Rebecca Randall (from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm) and Pollyanna Whittier (from Pollyanna and Pollyanna Grows Up).Maryanne Rhett, "The Graphic Novel and the World History Classroom", World History Connected, vol.4 no.2 (Feb. 2007)Marc Silver and Giovanna Buonanno, "Cross-cultural encounters: identity, gender, representation", (XXI national congress of the Associazione Italiana di Anglistica, held at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia on 25 - 27 September 2003) Officina, 2005, , p.110
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