Work · Rationalism
The Blazing World
A utopian romance appended to the Observations: an empress rules a world of animal-men and disputes with its scientists – an early work of science fiction.
Introduction
Cavendish published the romance together with the Observations in 1666 and reissued it in 1668; its preface calls the first part “romancical”, the second “philosophical” and the third “fantastical”. A young lady is carried to another world joined to ours at the North Pole, marries its emperor and as empress organises its learned societies: bear-men as experimental philosophers, bird-men as astronomers, ape-men as chemists. She summons the soul of the Duchess of Newcastle – Cavendish herself – as her scribe. The fiction lets Cavendish satirise the Royal Society, imagine female rule and create a world of her own. It is often counted among the early works of science fiction.
More works by Margaret Cavendish
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