Lady Margaret Cavendish – the first #scifi writer?

As a science fiction writer myself, I couldn’t resist sharing this article about Lady Margaret Cavendish which appeared in the Atlas Obscura. [My thanks to the Passive Guy for drawing my attention to the article].

The article goes into some very interesting detail about the Duchess and the story she wrote [she may also be one of the earliest feminists], but I’ll summarise by saying she was a natural philosopher [fancy name for scientist back then] and published twenty books, plays and essays. Amongst them was The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World.

The story, published in 1666, tells the tale of a woman kidnapped by sailors who stumbles on a portal that takes her to a strange new world. There she become Empress to a world full of beast-men.

You can find the full article, which includes a lovely excerpt from The Blazing World, here:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/one-of-the-earliest-science-fiction-books-was-written-in-the-1600s-by-a-duchess?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160920&bt_email=bobs92705%40aol.com&bt_ts=1474379287850

I wish I’d known about the Duchess back when I first discovered sci-fi. In those dim and distant days, it seemed as if the only people writing sci-fi were men. I’ve since learned there are some brilliant female science fiction writers, including Ursula K LeGuin, Margaret Atwood and C.J.Cherryh to mention just three. Nevertheless, I can’t help wondering how many more there might have been had we [girls] been given role models like the Duchess at school?

Another good day at Casa Meeka. 🙂

cheers

Meeks