Mary Cavendish: 17th century duchess, author, scientist, philosopher
September 29, 2016 12:01 PM   Subscribe

Browse through the history of science fiction and you don't see many women named. One of the first is Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who published a proto-SF novel in 1666, 152 years before Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Also notable, Mary Cavendish published her book, titled The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World (Internet Archive), under her own name. The book is a curious mixture of themes and styles: part science fiction, part fantasy, part scientific musing, part political tract, part social commentary and satire, and part autobiography. This diversity of topics reflected the amazing life and interests of its "Happy Creatoress," a woman of means but without formal education of her male peers.

As written in the biography in Cavendish by David Cunning (a study of her philosophical works),
Named Duchess of Newcastle in 1665, she was famous for her unusual occupation as a woman writer, and she was famous for being unusual more generally.... Her intellectual and creative achievements were remarkable, especially given her lack of formal academic training.
Duchess Cavendish wrote and spoke on a number of topics, including on sciences in her earlier publication, Poems, and fancies written by the Right Honourable, the Lady Margaret Newcastle (1653, text-only, digitized copy from University of Michigan) and philosophy (see her entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the International Encyclopedia of Philosophy, housed at the University of Tennessee, Martin).

Lady Cavendish studied the works of natural philosophers (the term 'scientist' was coined in 1833), and wrote a number of works herself. In 1655, she published The philosphical and physical opinions written by Her Excellency the Lady Marchionesse of Newcastle (Internet Archive; text-only at U Mich) and a subsequent title, Observations upon experimental philosophy (U Mich; edited, with footnotes, by Eileen O'Neill [Google books preview]), which Lady Cavendish published in 1666 or 1668 to improve upon her arguments from the prior title. With these titles, she challenged the ideas expressed by contemporary natural philosophers, and had the two books dispatched by special messenger to the most celebrated scholars of the day.

To this, she wished to be invited to the The President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, commonly known as the Royal Society, which was formed in 1660. In May 1667, she was the first woman to be invited to speak at the Royal Society, as recounted in limited detail by Samuel Pepys. Cabendish's 'nonsense' was derided for centuries, until her reputation was rehabilitated by feminist historians and scholars of women's history, who have argued that her views have real worth and should be taken seriously (Margaret Cavendish and the Royal Society, a scholarly paper by Emma Wilkins, published in 2014).

You can peruse more of her original writings on Archive.org, with some duplication, and see her works in University of Michigan's collection of Early English Books. If you want to read a more presentable copy of The Blazing World, the University of Adelaide has such a copy online. You can also listen to a nice audiobook copy of the title from LibreVox reader Sarah Terry.
posted by filthy light thief (13 comments total) 37 users marked this as a favorite
 
I discovered The Blazing World via Presurfer, and got lost from there.

The Blazing World was mentioned previously in a post about the British Library's exhibit on the origins of Science Fiction.

If you want to get involved with celebrations of Margaret Cavendish's life, there's the International Margaret Cavendish Society, but if their website is current, the group stalled in 2015.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:04 PM on September 29, 2016


The Blazing World

She must have been the source for this concept in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
posted by thelonius at 12:06 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


thelonius: she absolutely was the source.
posted by foldedfish at 12:07 PM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


Yeah, there's even a tiny reference to John Dee and Edward Kelley in The Blazing World which you know made Alan Moore jumped on (pp 65-66):
[...] amongst the rest she enquired, whether there were none that had found out yet the Jews Cabbala? Several have endeavoured it, answered the Spirits, but those that came nearest (although themselves denied it) were one Dr. Dee, and one Edward Kelly, the one representing Moses, and the other Aaron; for Kelly was to Dr. Dee as Aaron to Moses; but yet they proved at last but mere cheats, and were described by one of their own Country-men, a famous poet named Ben. Jonson, in a play called The Alchymist, where he expressed Kelly by Captain Face, and Dee by Dr. Subtle, and their two wives by Doll Common and the Widow; by the Spaniard in the play, he meant the Spanish Ambassador, and by Sir Epicure Mammon, a Polish Lord.
posted by Pallas Athena at 12:56 PM on September 29, 2016


Sounds like she invented the Exposition Dump as well!
posted by tobascodagama at 1:03 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is a great post. Thank you for sharing. I'll be clicking on these links tomorrow on my day off.
posted by Fizz at 2:15 PM on September 29, 2016


I've read The Blazing World. Favorite story elements: worm people and lice people; authorial self-insertion into the story; and proud arguments in favor of creating imaginary worlds.
posted by Wobbuffet at 2:45 PM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love how Moore handled the Blazing World in LOEG, with the 3D glasses... I can't wait to read through all this.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:51 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fantastic.
posted by Segundus at 2:14 AM on September 30, 2016


Thanks for these links flt, I’ve not read any of Cavendish’s works up to now, but have been enjoying dipping in to The Blazing World. Here’s a snippet that caught my eye (on p. 37):
They answered her Majesty, That some Species or sorts of Creatures were kept up by a successive propagation of an offspring that was like the producer, but some were not [and] of the second rank are for the most part those we call Insects, whose production proceds from such causes as have no conformity or likeness with their produced Effects; as for example, Maggots bred out of Cheese, and several others generated out of Earth, Water, and the like. But said the Empress, there is some likeness between Maggots and Cheese, for Cheese has no blood, nor Maggots neither; besides, they have almost the same taste which Cheese has. This proves nothing, answered they; for Maggots have a visible, local, progressive motion, which Cheese hath not. The Empress replied, That when all the Cheese was turned into Maggots, it might be said to have local, progressive motion. They answered that when the Cheese by its own figurative motions was changed into Maggots, it was no more Cheese.
(Emphasis mine).
posted by misteraitch at 2:52 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've got this cheese that I accidentally left out on the warm counter for a week or two and most of it has spontaneously turned into maggots. I know maggots have almost the same taste - should I eat this? Can I use the maggots in the recipe I originally planned, or will that change the texture?
posted by Segundus at 4:02 AM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]


Depends, is it Red Leicester?
posted by tavella at 12:07 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]


Recent novel about Margaret Cavendish, released this year: Margaret the First.
posted by Miss T.Horn at 3:53 PM on September 30, 2016 [3 favorites]


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