Margaret Cavendish

The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, better known as The Blazing World, is a 1666 work of prose fiction by English writer Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. It has been described as an early forerunner of science fiction.

The first science fiction work ever written by a female. It chronicles the adventures of a lady who after being kidnapped finds herself in a different realm. In this incredible world, the animals are highly intelligent and can even speak. Cavendish has cleverly blended her feminist views with science fiction in this spectacular portrayal of a utopian land. Absorbing

When Margaret Cavendish published her first collection of dramatic work in 1662, she was keenly aware that none of her comedies or tragedies was unlikely to be acted, at least in her lifetime--but that did not deter her. "To those that do delight in scenes and wit / I dedicate my book," she writes at the beginning of the volume entitled, simply, "Plays." As for the hard reality that her plays were not to be produced? She has an answer for that as well: "For all the time my plays a-making were, / My brain the stage, my thoughts were acting there.""The Female Academy," the last play in her 1662 collection, opens with a fait accompli-a group of "old matrons" has established an educational institution devoted exclusively to the education of young women, "a house wherein a company of young ladies are instructed . . . to speak wittily and rationally, . . . to behave themselves handsomely, and to live virtuously." In this play, Cavendish presents the Female Academy as an institution created by women, inhabited solely by women, and operated for the benefit of women. The play also allows us to see the reactions of men, excluded from the Female Academy. Instead of ignoring the school, or wishing its young pupils well in their educational pursuits, men can't stay away-they hang around and spy on what's going on through "a large open grate" that allows them to hear the lectures being given inside. The play alternates scenes between the young women inside the Female Academy and the increasingly frustrated men in the outside world. This new edition, designed for classroom use, provides an ample introduction to Cavendish and her work, a carefully modernized text, with helpful glosses and notes, and a useful bibliography with references for further reading.

The Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle - The True Relation of my Birth, Breeding and Life is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1886. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.

The story begins when a beautiful, unnamed maiden is kidnapped by a love-stricken merchant and his men. She is seized from the shore of her homeland and carried out to sea. While they are sailing, a tempest forces the boat to move towards the North Pole, and as the tempest rages on, she is saved "by Providence" and separated from her captors. The merchant's boat floats off into the Atlantic Ocean and the men freeze to death as the maiden, in a lifeboat, drifts into another world that is attached to Earth via the North Pole. She passes through the pole to discover an icy, strange world in which different suns gloriously shine; the new, strange, and wonderful qualities of the blazing light emanate from these stars to create an alternative space and time. The maiden has entered a new kingdom, called Blazing World.

Margaret Lucas Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), began her literary career in 1653, with the publication of a volume of her poems and another of her "philosophical fancies." Her writing continued at a hectic pace for nearly two decades. She did not limit herself to the genres considered "acceptable" for those few women who dared to publish in the late seventeenth century; instead, she wrote philosophical and scientific works, a utopian romance that has often been called the first work of science fiction in English, a biography of her husband, and her own autobiography. She also published two collections of dramatic works: the first of these, Plays, appeared in 1662, the second, Plays, Never before Printed, in 1668. Cavendish was keenly aware that her comedies and tragedies were unlikely to be acted, at least in her lifetime, but that did not deter her. "To those that do delight in scenes and wit / I dedicate my book," she writes in a brief poem at the beginning of Plays. She continues, "For all the time my plays a-making were, / My brain the stage, my thoughts were acting there." Today the most widely read of Cavendish's plays is The Convent of Pleasure, from Plays, Never before Printed. In this provocative comedy, Cavendish presents us with the delightful Lady Happy, whose determined efforts to avoid the pains of men and marriage lead her to construct a convent where women can devote themselves to enjoying life's pleasures. The women who retreat with her into the Convent of Pleasure are determined to avoid not only the dangers of men and marriage but also of childbirth and motherhood. Even so, they will not deny themselves the pleasures of love. Inside her convent, Lady Happy dares to imagine a radical alternative to marriage: since men and marriage cause only pain and suffering, perhaps a woman can fulfill her emotional and sexual desires with another woman. When she finds her soul's mate in a princess (rather than a prince), Lady Happy poses a critical question to herself and to us: "But why may not I love a woman with the same affection I could a man?" This Saltar's Point Press edition, designed for classroom use, provides readers with an ample introduction to Cavendish's life and work, a carefully modernized and well-presented text, helpful glosses and notes, a bibliography with references for further reading, and a chronology of Cavendish's published work.

First published in 1666>>>, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle's Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World is the first fictional portrayal of women and the new science. In Blazing World, Cavendish depicts her heroine, theEmpress, in multiple roles. The Empress is leader of a dreamlike utopian world reachable through the North Pole, filled with talking animals and intelligent hybrid creatures. She establishes a royal society of scientists, initiates learned conferences, interrogates existing knowledge, and spends her days speculating on natural philosophy. She also forms a lively intellectual collaboration with the "Duchess of Newcastle," a female character summoned from Earth. A companion volume to Cavendish's important Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, Blazing World is the first known science fiction novel to have been written and published by a woman, and represents a pioneering female scientific utopia. This Broadview Edition includes related historical materials on the new science and Cavendish's role in the intellectual world of her time.