First published in 1666>>>, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle's Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World is the first fictional portrayal of women and the new science. In Blazing World, Cavendish depicts her heroine, theEmpress, 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.

What was life like for women who lived in Tudor and Stuart England? This fascinating book provides a colourful and comprehensive account of the daily experiences of these women, using first-hand sources such as diaries, letters, and household accounts. The authors investigate the varying expectations and opportunities that existed at different stages of women's lives, and examine a range of different themes: the role of female friendships and networks of support or censure; the effects of prevailing gender stereotypes; the diverse roles of women in the religious and political movements of the times. The book focuses on the preoccupations of ordinary women, comparing the makeshift economy of the poorest with the ambitions and activities of those from wealthier backgrounds. Their views on the world -- the outlook of that half of the population usually hidden from the historical record -- open up a valuable new perspective on the history of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.