The Blazing World

Written by Margaret Cavendish

Narrated by Lucy Scott

Born in 1623 as the youngest child of a wealthy Essex family, Margaret Cavendish became a Maid of Honour to Queen Henrietta Maria before going on to marry the widowed William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. She was a prolific writer whose work encompassed a range of genres including poetry, moral tales, romance, scientific treatises, philosophy, drama and biography. Pepys wrote of her: ‘The whole story of this Lady is a romance, and all she doth is romantic’.
The Blazing World is part fiction and part feminist text in which a lady is shipwrecked and seeks to ensure that the Blazing World in which she finds herself is transformed into a Utopia – free of war, sexual discrimination and religious discord. It is a fascinating and extravagant combination of what the author herself calls ‘romancical’, ‘philosophical’ and ‘fantastical’.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Jan 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781781983980

Margaret Cavendish

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was an English philosopher, poet, playwright, and scientist. Born Mary Lucas, she was the youngest of eight children in a wealthy aristocratic family. With access to libraries and tutors, she showed intellectual promise and began writing at a young age, but felt pressure to pursue a more traditional feminine lifestyle. As a young woman, she found employment as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria, accompanying her into exile in France during the English Civil War. Although she struggled to acclimate to high society, she remained in her role for several years until marrying William Cavendish, the Marquess of Newcastle. With her husband’s support, Cavendish embarked on a career in literature, publishing broadly in the last decades of her life. Her major works include Poems and Fancies (1653), A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life (1856), Plays (1662), and Plays, Never Before Printed (1668), the latter of which includes her beloved comedy The Convent of Pleasure. The Blazing World (1666), a utopian novel, is considered a landmark work of science fiction and has earned praise from modern feminist scholars for its pioneering depiction of gender and sexuality. In 1667, Cavendish broke new ground as the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society of London, where she engaged with such philosophers as Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, and René Descartes. A vitalist, she rejected Aristotelianism and published six books on natural philosophy in her lifetime, including Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666). Largely derided by such contemporaries as Samuel Pepys and Dorothy Osborne, Cavendish has since been recognized as a groundbreaking figure in the history of English literature.

Reviews for The Blazing World

[Joanna Disch · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interessante frühe Sci-Fi mit einer emanzipierten Hauptfigur. Jedoch eher trocknen im Erzählstil.