Margaret Cavendish: Sociable Letters (Garland Studies in the Renaissance) [Hardcover]

James Fitzmaurice (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0815324510 | ISBN-13: 978-0815324515 | Edition: 1

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), Duchess of Newcastle and one of the best-known women writers of the her time, is enjoying a revival in the wake of Aphra Behn's canonization: She appears in the "Norton Anthology of English Literature," her poetry will appear in a new edition, and Penguin has recently reprinted her science-fiction novel "The Blazing World." This is an edition of her hilarious and rowdy letters, unavailable since their original publication in 1664
"Margaret Cavendish: Sociable Letters" is a window into the world of 17th-century marriage and daily life displaying a pleasing blend of the comic, the ironic, and the serious. Along the way, the author provides us with the first detailed criticism of Shakespeare's plays, which she defends against the Restoration distaste for low characters. She also comments on food, home remedies, the English Civil Wars, religious fanaticism, street entertainers, churchgoing as a way to find a husband, and winter sports
This edition offers a full introduction to Cavendish's life and works, a bibliography, and detailed notes, and takes account of hand-corrections made at the author's behest

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a fine edition of Margaret Cavendish's most engaging and accessible work. The text is reliable, the annotations are helpful, and the volume contains an extremely useful appendix of letters by Cavendish and various other family members. The volume will be a great resource for those with an interest in early modern literature, history, and women's writing. James Fitzmaurice is an excellent scholar and the annotations in this edition reflect many years of painstaking work on Cavendish's writings and their context.” (Paul Salzman )

“Sociable Letters is a very welcome addition to Broadview's excellent editions of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. The dialogic form of the letter is perfectly adapted to express Cavendish's ambivalences—about marriage, reading and writing, and women's nature and role. James Fitzmaurice's erudite and user-friendly edition contains the added bonus of a generous quantity of real seventeenth-century letters as context.” (Jacqueline Pearson )

“This is a welcome edition of one of Margaret Cavendish's most multifaceted and engaging works by a leading scholar of Cavendish. Not only is it an important text for early modern women's writing, but it provides a varied and detailed commentary on seventeenth-century English culture and society. Cavendish's innovative use of the epistolary form, successful in its own right, anticipates the appeal of the form to novelists in the eighteenth century. The introduction and appendices offer helpful contexts for a fuller understanding of the work." (Mihoko Suzuki ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

The writings of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, are remarkable for their vivid depiction of the mores and mentality of seventeenth-century England. This edition includes all of Cavendish's Sociable Letters (1664), a collection of writings that comments on a wide range of aspects of seventeenth-century society, such as war and peace, science and medicine, English and Classical literatures, and social issues such as choosing a spouse, married life, infidelity, divorce, and the option of women not to marry. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a valuable selection of primary documents that situate Margaret Cavendish and Sociable Letters within the context of English letter writing and other early women writers. Appendices include the letters Cavendish wrote during her courtship with William Cavendish; letters by two family members, Elizabeth Cavendish Egerton and Christiana Cavendish; letters written by Aphra Behn, Dorothy Osborne, and Angel Day; and an essay by Francis Bacon. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (December 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815324510
• ISBN-13: 978-0815324515
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,752,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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