Overview

'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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Margaret Cavendish ,  Lisa Walters (University of Queensland)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 13.00cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 19.50cm
Weight:   0.323kg
ISBN:  

9780192862907

ISBN 10:   0192862901
Pages:   464
Publication Date:   14 August 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

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

Reviews

Author Information

Lisa Walters is Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland. She is the author of Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Science and Politics (2014) and co-editor of Margaret Cavendish: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (2022). Dr Walters is also one of the joint editors of the Restoration section of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing.

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