The description of a new world, called the blazing world /

First published in 1666, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle's Description of a New 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 wor...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of, 1624?-1674 (Author)
Other Authors: Mendelson, Sara Heller, 1947- (Editor)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Peterborough, Ontario : Broadview Press, [2016]
Series:Broadview editions.
Subjects:
Description
Summary:First published in 1666, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle's Description of a New 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 known science fiction novel 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.
Physical Description:235 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-235).
ISBN:9781554812424
1554812429