'I had rather die in the adventure of noble achievements, than live in obscure and sluggish security.'
One of the most diverse, prolific, and maverick intellectuals of her time, Margaret Cavendish is known for critiquing a wide range of early modern cultural and philosophical beliefs. While she was the first British woman to publish several philosophical treatises, she was also profoundly interested in literature and writing in nearly every available genre; indeed, with her wide-ranging, complex, and often unorthodox ideas, she was a pioneer of what today would be referred to as science fiction.
In this edition Lisa Walters brings together well-known and popular works such as The Blazing World, alongside lesser-known poems and prose pieces, like The Ambitious Traitor and The Unnatural Tragedy. The introduction discusses the wide-ranging concepts that appear in the writings, from gender and cross-dressing, to science and the nature of the universe, and provides a fresh insight on Cavendish's proclivity for literary experimentation and innovation.
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Margaret Cavendish
POETRY FROM POEMS AND FANCIES
Of Many Worlds in this World
The Soul's Garment
Of Stars
Motion Directs, While Atoms Dance
Motion Makes Atoms a Bawd for Figure
Nature Calls a Council, Which is Motion, Figure, Matter, and Life To Advise About Making the World
A Dialogue Betwixt Riches and Poverty
Of the Ant
Of the Knowledge of Beasts
Of Fish
Earth's Complaint
The Clasp
The Hunting of the Hare
Nature's Oven
Nature's [Wine] Cellar
A Dialogue Between an Oak, and a Man Cutting it Down
from 'A Dialogue betwixt Birds'
STORIES
The Blazing World
The Travelling Spirits
The Ambitious Traitor
Assaulted and Pursued Chastity
PROSE
from Orations of Diverse Sorts
from Sociable Letters
from 'A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life'
PLAYS
The Unnatural Tragedy
The Convent of Pleasure
Explanatory Notes
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