The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World - Softcover

Cavendish, Lady Margaret Lucas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9187611104 ISBN 13: 9789187611100

Publisher: Timaios Press, 2016

Synopsis

In this remarkable proto-science fiction story from 1666--which also bear striking resemblances with modern fantasy--the author Lady Margaret Cavendish explores an allegorical and satirical world, which she finds through a portal at the North Pole. The bizarre beings in this world need to understand the true meaning of science and philosophy, which Lady Cavendish provides them, and thus she becomes their empress. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World criticize and explore such issues as science, gender and power.

The natural philosopher, author and poet Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-73) lived during the scientific revolution and participated in this brand new world, with contemporaries such as Descartes, Leibniz and Newton. One of her correspondents was the astronomer Huygens. She was the first--and during a long time the only--woman who was allowed to attend a meeting at Royal Society of London.

Margaret was viewed by her contemporaries as being rather eccentric. She was extravagant and flirtatious, accused of using speech full of "oaths and obscenity," and was noted for her unusual sense of fashion. Today, she is honored as an original, unique and clear-sighted thinker, as well as an early feminist.

About this title

Review:

"Sara Mendelson's welcome new edition presents a comprehensive reading of Cavendish's audacious 'theory of everything.' Adding over twenty-five new voices to criticism of the text, while retaining her distinctive discussions of Bacon's and Behn's relevance to Cavendish's work, Mendelson builds on the strong foundation of the Paper Bodies edition. She offers robust new explanations of Cavendish's inventive work with genre, her extensive knowledge of natural sciences, philosophy, and religion, and the influence of exile, friends, and family on her writing. Expanded and clarified notes will help students to understand the story's many rich contexts and weird moments. Especially welcome are the more balanced discussions weighing Cavendish's feminism against her story of aggressive power in part two, and the editor's increased attention to the most intriguing parts of Cavendish's pioneering and fascinating fiction." -- John Morillo, North Carolina State University

"Sara Mendelson's edition of Blazing World is a major contribution to the ever-increasing scholarship on the works of this remarkable woman. Cavendish's utopian romance, which also functions as a critique of the new experimental science, is becoming one of the canonical texts of the Scientific Revolution. Mendelson's fine introduction places this work within the context of the literary, historical, and philosophic movements of early modern England. Mendelson clarifies how gender affected Cavendish's natural philosophy and the structure of Blazing World. Including Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Aphra Behn's Preface to her translation of Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes allows the reader to understand how radical Cavendish's ideas were in her time." -- Lisa Sarasohn, Oregon State University

"Sara Mendelson's welcome new edition presents a comprehensive reading of Cavendish's audacious 'theory of everything.' Adding over twenty-five new voices to criticism of the text, while retaining her distinctive discussions of Bacon's and Behn's relevance to Cavendish's work, Mendelson builds on the strong foundation of the Paper Bodies edition. She offers robust new explanations of Cavendish's inventive work with genre, her extensive knowledge of natural sciences, philosophy, and religion, and the influence of exile, friends, and family on her writing. Expanded and clarified notes will help students to understand the story's many rich contexts and weird moments. Especially welcome are the more balanced discussions weighing Cavendish's feminism against her story of aggressive power in part two, and the editor's increased attention to the most intriguing parts of Cavendish's pioneering and fascinating fiction." -- John Morillo, North Carolina State University

"Sara Mendelson's edition of Blazing World is a major contribution to the ever-increasing scholarship on the works of this remarkable woman. Cavendish's utopian romance, which also functions as a critique of the new experimental science, is becoming one of the canonical texts of the Scientific Revolution. Mendelson's fine introduction places this work within the context of the literary, historical, and philosophic movements of early modern England. Mendelson clarifies how gender affected Cavendish's natural philosophy and the structure of Blazing World. Including Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Aphra Behn's Preface to her translation of Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes allows the reader to understand how radical Cavendish's ideas were in her time." -- Lisa Sarasohn, Oregon State University

"Sara Mendelson's edition (2016) of Margaret Cavendish's utopian feminist fantasy, The Blazing-World (London: Anne Maxwell, 1666, 1668), is a welcome contribution to Cavendish studies. The edition brings fresh, contextual attention to arguably the most popular of Cavendish's works; moreover, the edition shows scholars, generalists, teachers, and students how a modern edition of a 17th-century text may be assembled. There have been earlier editions of this 1666 novel ... but the Mendelson Blazing-World will be the current edition of choice." -- Maureen Mulvihill, Rare Books Monthly

-Sara Mendelson's welcome new edition presents a comprehensive reading of Cavendish's audacious 'theory of everything.' Adding over twenty-five new voices to criticism of the text, while retaining her distinctive discussions of Bacon's and Behn's relevance to Cavendish's work, Mendelson builds on the strong foundation of the Paper Bodies edition. She offers robust new explanations of Cavendish's inventive work with genre, her extensive knowledge of natural sciences, philosophy, and religion, and the influence of exile, friends, and family on her writing. Expanded and clarified notes will help students to understand the story's many rich contexts and weird moments. Especially welcome are the more balanced discussions weighing Cavendish's feminism against her story of aggressive power in part two, and the editor's increased attention to the most intriguing parts of Cavendish's pioneering and fascinating fiction.- -- John Morillo, North Carolina State University

-Sara Mendelson's edition of Blazing World is a major contribution to the ever-increasing scholarship on the works of this remarkable woman. Cavendish's utopian romance, which also functions as a critique of the new experimental science, is becoming one of the canonical texts of the Scientific Revolution. Mendelson's fine introduction places this work within the context of the literary, historical, and philosophic movements of early modern England. Mendelson clarifies how gender affected Cavendish's natural philosophy and the structure of Blazing World. Including Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Aphra Behn's Preface to her translation of Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes allows the reader to understand how radical Cavendish's ideas were in her time.- -- Lisa Sarasohn, Oregon State University

-Sara Mendelson's edition (2016) of Margaret Cavendish's utopian feminist fantasy, The Blazing-World (London: Anne Maxwell, 1666, 1668), is a welcome contribution to Cavendish studies. The edition brings fresh, contextual attention to arguably the most popular of Cavendish's works; moreover, the edition shows scholars, generalists, teachers, and students how a modern edition of a 17th-century text may be assembled. There have been earlier editions of this 1666 novel ... but the Mendelson Blazing-World will be the current edition of choice.- -- Maureen Mulvihill, Rare Books Monthly

From the Back Cover:

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, the Empress, 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 science-fiction novel known 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Timaios Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 9187611104
• ISBN 13: 9789187611100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 124