margaret cavendish

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) was an English aristocrat and writer, best known for the biography of her husband, published in 1667. Born Margaret Lucas, she was the youngest sister of prominent Royalists, Sir John Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas. She became an attendant of Queen Henrietta Maria, and travelled with her into exile in France, living for a time at the court of the young king Louis XIV. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle in 1645, when he was a mere Marquis. He was immensely rich, and was appointed governor of the Prince of Wales by King Charles I of England, but was dismissed in the course of the political machinations leading up to the English Civil War. At the Restoration in 1660, he was made a duke, and his wife became a duchess. She had a great ear for gossip, and it is the intimate secrets of her contemporaries that are the main point of interest in her work. She was a poet, philosopher, essayist, playwright and, some say, an efficient and tireless self-publicist. She took the - for a Duchess - unprecedented step of publishing her work under her own name which infringed the then prevailing ideas of propriety. Samuel Pepys called her "mad, conceited and ridiculous". Among her works is New Blazing World which could be described as the first science fiction novel. Whatever the quality of her work, she was the only woman in contemporary England to have published more than one book. As a philosopher, Margaret Cavendish rejected the Aristotelianism of the 17th century, with its picture of nature as a great machine, and the views of Thomas Hobbes, Descartes, Boyle and members of the Royal Society of London. With the advent of the Women's Movement, Margaret Cavendish has become a role model for today's women. There is a Margaret Cavendish Society at the University of Dundee. Some of her works:

Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 1668
The Worlds Olio, 1655
Poems, and Fancies, 1653
Natures Pictures, 1656
New Blazing World
A True Relation
The Convent of Pleasure

Several of these works and many lesser-known writings are available from the Women Writers Project.

Biography

Mad Madge by Katie Whitaker (ISBN 070116929X)

External link

World's Worst Writers: Margaret Cavendish

Cavendish, Margaret Cavendish, Margaret

<< Previous

Word Browser

Next >>

eastport, new york
eatons neck, new york
elwood, new york
farmingville, new york
cherry grove, new york
fishers island, new york
flanders, new york
fort salonga, new york
gilgo oak beach captree, new york
gordon heights, new york
great river, new york

greenlawn, new york
greenport, suffolk county, new york
greenport west, new york
halesite, new york
hampton bays, new york
hauppauge, new york
head of the harbor, new york
holbrook, new york
holtsville, new york
huntington bay, new york
huntington station, new york

islandia, new york
islip terrace, new york
jamesport, new york
kings park, new york
lake grove, new york
lake ronkonkoma, new york
laurel, new york
lindenhurst, new york
oscar de la renta
lloyd harbor, new york
manorville, new york

mastic, new york
mastic beach, new york
mattituck, new york
medford, new york
melville, new york
middle island, new york
miller place, new york
montauk, new york
moriches, new york
mount sinai, new york
napeague, new york