New Blazing World and Other Writings
Editor: Kate Lilley
Pickering Women's Classics
978 1 85196 024 8: 234x156mm: £40.00
New Blazing World is one of the earliest pieces of science fiction, telling the story of a voyage to a Utopian world. The Duchess of Newcastle (1623-73) was fascinated by contemporary science, and wove it into her writings. She was a colourful figure as well as a prolific and popular author. Pepys, however, described her as 'mad, conceited and ridiculous'.
The range of Margaret Cavendish's literary and scientific ambition, as well as her overt desire for fame, has aroused praise and blame, incredulity and pathos. A tremendous self-publicist, she published her own oeuvre, a huge body of work encompassing historical treatises, essays, poems, plays and autobiography. Her personal excess was legendary. When she made her rare and highly theatrical public appearances, men and women lined the streets of London to catch a glimpse of her. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, published her work under her own name, a radical and deliberate infringement of contemporary proprieties, self-consciously producing herself as a fantastic and singular woman.
Contents
Introduction
Notes on this edition
Chronology
Works by Margaret Cavendish
Further Reading
From Nature's Pictures (1656)
'The Contract'
'Assaulted and Pursued Chastity'
The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World (1666)