The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
1666
The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
1666
Margaret Cavendish wrote herself into immortality with this audacious fantasy, the first work of prose fiction published by a woman under her own name. In 1666, when women were barred from universities and most intellectual life, Cavendish imagined a world where a woman could not only rule but be worshipped for her wisdom. The story begins with a merchant so consumed by love for a noble lady that he resorts to abduction, a plot device that propels her across the sea toward a world no European had seen. Shipwrecked at the North Pole, she is rescued by bear-men and other fantastical beings who make her their empress. What follows is part adventure, part philosophical inquiry, part satire of the male scientists and philosophers Cavendish mocked. She commands armies of fish-men, converses with spirits, and returns to our world to claim her own happy ending. The prose can be digressive, the pacing uneven, but the sheer audacity of vision remains breathtaking. Cavendish was called mad, ridiculed, dismissed. Today she is recognized as an ancestor of science fiction and a defiant assertion that women's imaginations could build worlds.
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“I had rather die in the adventure of noble achievements, than live in obscure and sluggish security.””
— Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
“For Nature is so full of variety, that our weak Senses cannot perceive all the various sorts of her Creatures; neither is there any one object perceptible by all our Senses, no more then several objects are by one sense.””
— Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
“...though I have neither Power, Time nor Occasion, to be a great Conqueror, like Alexander, or Cesar; yet, rather than not be Mistress of a World, since Fortune and the Fates would give me none, I have made One of my own. And thus, believing, or, at least, hoping, that no Creature can, or will, Envy me for this World of mine, I remain,Noble Ladies, Your Humble Servant, M. Newcastle.””
— Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
“The reason thereof is, said the Duchess, that they have too little Gold and Riches, which makes them so eager to have it. No, replied the Empress's Soul, their particular Covetousness, is beyond all the wealth of the richest World, and the more Riches they have, the more Covetous they are; for their Covetousness is Infinite.””
— Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
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Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world-15ab77ca-6ccd-4157-9b6a-2618a328f8ed.Margaret Cavendish, D. O. N. (1666). The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world-15ab77ca-6ccd-4157-9b6a-2618a328f8edMargaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world-15ab77ca-6ccd-4157-9b6a-2618a328f8ed.
