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    Margaret the First: A Novel
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    Margaret the First: A Novel
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    Margaret the First: A Novel
    Ebook164 pages2 hours

    Margaret the First: A Novel

    By Danielle Dutton

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A “strikingly smart” novel dramatizing the life of a highly unconventional duchess in seventeenth-century England (Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation).
     
    Chosen as a Lit Hub Best Book of 2016, an Entropy Best Book of 2016, and one of Electric Literature’s Best Novels of 2016
     
    Margaret the First is based on the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional seventeenth-century duchess. The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when being a writer was not an option open to women. As one of the queen’s attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, she was exiled to France when King Charles I was overthrown. As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career.
     
    After the war, her work earned her both fame and infamy in England: at the dawn of daily newspapers, she was “Mad Madge,” an original tabloid celebrity. Yet Margaret was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London—a mainstay of the Scientific Revolution—and the last for another two hundred years. This is a gorgeous and wholly new approach to imagining the life of a historical woman.
     
    “The duchess herself would be delighted at her resurrection in Margaret the Firs . . . Dutton expertly captures the pathos of a woman whose happiness is furrowed with the anxiety of underacknowledgment.” —TheNew York Times Book Review
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMar 1, 2016
    ISBN9781936787364

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    Reviews for Margaret the First

    3.5/5

    14 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I am bowled over by this. I knew next to nothing about Margaret Cavendish when I started it, and by the end, I was determined to look up more.

      In an era where women of noble birth were often little more than decorative objects, Margaret Cavendish wrote feverishly for most of her life, everything from wild flights of fancy to philosphical musings (and sometimes both, as when she reflected on the possibility that, given the size of atoms, there could be a whole microscopic world contained within a lady's earring). She paid for several of her books to be published, which were widely read and discussed (Samuel Pepys mentions her multiple times in his famous diaries). She argued with and criticized some of the foremost scientific thinkers of her day, despite having little to no education. She also was famous for her daring costumes (as examples, she sometimes wore black velvet stars and moons on her face, and once commissioned a dress for the theater that left the breasts exposed). In short, her life was nothing short of fascinating, all the more so for the way it flouted almost all the womanly conventions of her time.
    • 4/5
      This is a biographical novel about Margaret Cavendish, a woman who lived during the English Civil War. She wrote books that some consider to be the first works of fantasy and science fiction, as well as plays. She was extremely eccentric. Dutton puts the reader inside Margaret's very strange head. The writing is lush and poetic, and instead of presenting a clear narrative of events following events, we get a kaleidoscope of impressionistic images and feelings from Margaret's life. For people who want their biographical novels to be narrative and informative, this might be frustrating, but I found it delightful. She was an enigmatic character, and her biography is also appropriately enigmatic.
    • 3/5
      This novel felt more like a teaser about the life of an interesting 17th-century English duchess. The author traces Margaret Cavendish's life through the English Civil War, exile, and restoration as Margaret forged an independent identity for herself as an author. Fascinating, but I wish this book had been longer, provided more detail, and developed the characters more. As it was, I felt as through the novel simply skimmed the surface of Margaret Cavendish's life, without providing much depth.
    • 2/5
      Margaret the First: A Novel by Danielle Dutton was a disappointment. The novel was just vague enough that I could not check out anything historically. . After doing some major research, I found that this story is about Margaret Cavendish, a 17th century duchess. Margaret would be called unconventional for her time, reading, writing, and debating with men. This book was only 176 pages, perhaps that's why everything was so vague?
    • 4/5
      This is a rather odd little book. Margaret the First is Margaret Cavendish, a duchess that lived during the British Civil War and Restoration. A rather fey child, she became a lady in waiting to the Queen, and stayed such during the Queen’s court in exile. At court she met and married William Cavendish, a man 30 years her senior. It was an enduring love match. She became noted for her style of dress- she would design her own dresses, taking inspiration from the mossy forest floor or the like. During the time in the Low Countries, she met many noted thinkers, scientists, writers, and philosophers. When they were able to return to London, where there were books written in English, she became an autodidact, reading voraciously. She wrote almost ceaselessly- plays, poems, essays, and a novel or two- but of course she was not widely read; what could a woman write that could be of consequence, after all? Margaret was a conundrum. She upstaged the first showing of her husband’s play by showing up at the theater topless, and stated that what she wanted was fame. Her conversation- or, more apt, her holdings forth- swung from physics to fairies. She wrote what might be considered the first science fiction novel, and was the first woman (*only* woman for 200 years) invited to a meeting of the Royal Society of London. She ranged from horribly shy to never shutting up. She is almost portrayed as bipolor in this novel, ranging from deep lows to frantic highs. This is not the kind of historical fiction where the history takes precedence. The focus is on Margaret, with history happening around her in the background. At only 160 pages and with fast paced writing, the book can be read in a few hours. While not my favorite book in the world- I’d give it four stars out of five- it was a few hours well spent.
    • 4/5
      Dutton's novel is a fictionalized biography of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. A shy and imaginative girl who enjoyed pondering the "unseen worlds" in cobwebs, stones, and drops of water on her family's country estate, Margaret's world changed forever with the onset of the English Civil War. She was sent to serve as a lady-in-waiting to queen Henrietta Maria; her family believed (and rightly so) that she was ill-suited to court life, but they also knew that she would be safer in the queen's retinue, which eventually fled to France. Margaret's family home was demolished, two brothers died fighting for the royalists, and even the bodies of her ancestors were dragged from their tombs and desecrated. Times were, indeed, dangerous.At court, Margaret captured the attention of William Cavendish. Although thirty years her senior, he seemed to understand her and encouraged her inclinations towards philosophy and writing and often brought the greats of the day to dinner--Descartes, Hobbes, John Evelyn, and many others. In despair over her childlessness, Margaret began to write and became obsessed with the desire for fame. She published collections of poems, her thoughts on natural history and philosophy, and stories that are now considered the forerunners of modern science fiction. In her day, she was as notorious as she was famous: people called her "Mad Madge," in part because of her outlandish self-designed dress. Her work has sparked a renewed interest in recent decades; Virginia Woolf was one of the first to bring her to attention in the last century. She was also the first woman invited to address the Royal Academy. Dutton does a fine job of creating Margaret's shaky world and of fleshing out her unusual personality (and that of her indulgent husband). I would encourage anyone interested in this book to also peruse some of Cavendish's own writing. As fantastical as it is, some considered her examination of "atoms" and other scientific phenomena to be quite logical and innovative in her day.
    • 4/5
      This is a charming and poetic fictional account of the amazing life of Margaret Lucas Cavendish - Duchess of Newcastle. She was smart, intellectual and bold during the English Civil War of the 17th century and the peace time following. She was a feminist before her time; a celebrity (pretty much of her own devising) - bold and sassy. She was so highly regarded that she was the first woman (and only for two hundred years) to be invited to The Royal Society of London - a fellowship of distinguished scientists. Danielle Dutton's prose is painterly and she deftly presents a story of an intriguing and enigmatic female character of English history. Well done!I am grateful to author Danielle Dutton, publisher Catapult and Goodreads Giveaway program for having provided a free Advance Reading Copy of this book. Their generosity, however, did not influence this review, the words of which are mine alone.Synopsis (from book's back cover):Margaret the First dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess. The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when “being a writer” was not an option open to women. As one of the Queen’s attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, she was exiled to France when King Charles I was overthrown. As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career. After the War, her work earned her both fame and infamy in England: at the dawn of daily newspapers, she was “Mad Madge,” an original tabloid celebrity. Yet Margaret was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London—a mainstay of the Scientific Revolution—and the last for another two hundred years.Margaret the First is an intimate portrait of a woman whose life was a brilliant paradox, but who is largely unknown. Written with lucid precision and sharp cuts through narrative time, the novel also revels in the physicality of a garden or a gown, and turns tender in its rendering of family and marital ties.
    • 2/5
      Margaret the First: A Novel by Danielle Dutton was a disappointment. The novel was just vague enough that I could not check out anything historically. . After doing some major research, I found that this story is about Margaret Cavendish, a 17th century duchess. Margaret would be called unconventional for her time, reading, writing, and debating with men. This book was only 176 pages, perhaps that's why everything was so vague?
    • 4/5
      Very enjoyable fictionalized account of Margaret Cavendish, writer-ahead-of-her-time. I'd love to follow this up with a real biography and/or her writing. Great for historical fiction readers of all stripes.