Vida infantil

Cavendish's first publication appeared in 1653 as her Poems and Fancies (Wing N869), which appeared with numerous paratexts, including dedicatory epistles, prologues, and prefaces. Also in 1653 appeared her Philosophical Fancies. Attributed only to the “Right Honourable, The Lady Newcastle,” the anonymous Poems and Fancies would set the tone of her future publi- cations, all of which demonstrated a considerably astute understanding of the extremely lively English printing and publishing industry in the seventeenth century. A second edition of this text appeared in 1664 (Wing N870), but this one listed its authorial attribution as “Thrice Noble, Il- lustrious, and Excellent, Princess, The Duchess of Newcastle.”145

The authorial attributions on the title pages of Cavendish’s works reveal a great deal about Cavendish’s societal status and authorial identity, as the attributions change over the

143 _{According to Jonathan Goldberg, “like the violation of the border between subject and object, self and other, in} Blazing World, describes the vagaries of Cavendish’s writing practice even at the level of the letter (442).

144 _{Virginia Woolf refers to Cavendish as “crazy”: “When the rumour spread that the crazy Duchess was coming up} from Welbeck to pay her respects at Court, people crowded the streets to look at her, and the curiosity of Mr. Pepys twice brought him to wait in the Park to see her pass. But the pressure of the crowd about her coach was too great” (The Common Reader 34-5). Paul Salzman also sees a troubled psyche of Cavendish, arguing that “Cavendish [. . .] tended to veer between self-deprecation and self-assertion in a manner calculated to undermine any sweeping gener- alization one might make about her own sense of her image as a female author” (Reading Early Modern Women’s Writing 135).

145 _{There is no inherent meaning behind the epithet “Thrice Noble,” but Cavendish used this phrase on the title pages} of several of her publications.

course of her publishing career depending on her place among English nobility.146 Another of Cavendish’s early publications came in 1655 as The Worlds Olio· Written by the Most Excellent Lady the Lady Marchionesse of Newcastle (Wing N873). A second edition of this text appeared in 1671 (Wing N874), but like the second edition of Poems and Fancies, this edition’s title page attributes the text to “The Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and Most Excellent Princess, the Duchess of Newcastle. This change in authorial attribution constitutes the only major difference between the two editions of the text, and it also characterizes the rest of her published texts that appeared in more than one edition. Also in 1655 appeared Philosophical and Physical Opinions, written by her Excellency, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle (Wing N863). A second edition of this text appeared in 1663 (Wing N864) with the once again newly promoted status of Cavendish reflect- ed on the title page. Such self-aggrandizing titles were rare in the first two centuries of printed books and Cavendish’s use of such titles highlights her desire for both self-promotion and admit- tance to the world of published authors.

Cavendish’s vast oeuvre goes beyond poetry and natural philosophy and includes drama, biography, and autobiography; bibliographic aspects of these texts further illustrate her conscious authorial project. Cavendish, in fact, became one of the first women to write an autobiography that appeared in print when in 1656 she published A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life, which appeared attached to the Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life. A second edition of this text appeared in 1671 (Wing N856). Cavendish also had published in 1667 a biography of her husband, entitled The Life of the Thrice Noble, High, and Puissant Prince William Cavendishe (1667). A second edition of this text appeared in Margaret Caven- dish’s own English-to-Latin translation in 1668 (Wing N848). A third edition in English ap-

146 _{D.F. McKenzie argues that “Cavendish’s books are interesting for their surface—they’re sumptuous, lavishly} spaced, highly decorated folios printed in Great Primer or Double Pica on good paper” (122).

peared in 1675 (Wing N854). The various editions of the life writings of her husband and name- sake not only fueled Cavendish’s name because of her prominent self-promotion on the title pag- es, but they also furthered her upward mobility though the promotion of her husband’s position in the nobility. Cavendish also published two collections of plays: Playes written by the thrice noble, illustrious and excellent princess, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle (Wing N868), printed in 1662, and Plays, never before printed. Written by the thrice noble, illustrious, and ex- cellent princesse, the Duchess of Newcastle (Wing N 867), printed in 1668. The very title of her second collection of plays demonstrates Cavendish’s conscious attempt to advertise this particu- lar publication to potential book buyers who had already seen her first collection of drama. In- deed, Cavendish tested tradition and went against many expectations as an author.147 Such a ges- ture would have invited a potential reader and buyer to look twice at the book and even purchase another edition of it.

Her most well know publication appeared in 1666 with the folio printing of Observations upon experimental philosophy. To which is added, the description of a new blazing world. Writ- ten by the thrice noble, illustrious, and excellent princesse, the Duchess of Newcastle (Wing N847 and N859). This text appeared in a second edition in 1668 with one difference: in the first edition of Observations, each new section begins with its own first page, while in the 1668 edi- tion (Wing N858), only TheBlazing World begins with its own first page. In both editions, The Blazing World appears after the Observations section of the text. Cavendish very consciously attached TheBlazing World, a fictive prose utopian text some critics have labeled as the first sci- ence fiction text, to a volume of natural philosophy. In 1626, Francis Bacon's (1561-1626) Latin version of his prose utopia, TheNew Atlantis, appeared in print attached to his text on natural

147 _{According to Marea Mitchell and Dianne Osland, “Cavendish was a political conservative, aligned with the roy-} alists, but in her literary ambition apparently bound by no known laws of tradition or kind, publishing (prolifically) on philosophical and scientific topics as well as prose fiction and memoir” (99-100).

philosophy, Sylva Silvarum, or a Natural Historie (STC 1168, 1169, 1170 1171, 1172). Bacon had intended to compose an expansive multi-part treatise on natural philosophy called the Great Instauration, part of which included his Latin text Novum Organum, firstprinted in 1620 (STC 1162 and 1163). But Bacon left this project unfinished, and Cavendish similarly left a vast yet splintered catalogue of texts, both literary and philosophical.