Blazing World And Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

Description:
Flamboyant, theatrical and ambitious, Margaret Cavendish was one of the seventeenth century's most striking figures: a woman who ventured into the male spheres of politics, science, philosophy and literature. The Blazing World is a highly original work: part Utopian fiction, part feminist text, it tells of a lady shipwrecked on the Blazing World where she is made Empress and uses her power to ensure that it is free of war, religious division and unfair sexual discrimination. This volume also includes The Contract, a romance in which love and law work harmoniously together, and Assaulted and Pursued Chastity, which explores the power and freedom a woman can achieve in the disguise of a man.

Author Biography:
Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623 - 1673). A Royalist during English Civil War, Margaret Lucas was Maid of Honor to Queen Henrietta Maria from 1643 to 1645. She wrote a total of fourteen works on a broad selection of topics: scientific and philosophical treatises, science fiction, a biography, an autobiography, essays, letters, poetry, 'orations', and several plays. Kate Lilley was born in Perth. She completed her doctorate on Masculine Elegy at the University of London and went on to postdoctoral research at St Hilda's College, Oxford as the Julia Mann Junior Research Fellow. She now teaches Literary History and Critical Theory at the University of Sydney. She has published many essays on contemporary Australian and American poetry, especially the work of John Tranter, and on 17th century women's writing.