Review 2504: Novellas in November! Margaret the First

Margaret the First is another of the short books listed on the Literary Hub’s 50 Best Contemporary Novels under 200 Pages post. I read it for Novellas in November.

This biographical novel is about Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, called Mad Madge in her time. She was the first woman to write for publication. And write she did—philosophy, poetry, plays, and even utopian speculative fiction. She was also very shy, tended toward agoraphobia, and wore extravagantly creative clothing.

Although some of the book is about her childhood, most of it concerns her life during her marriage. Her husband, William Cavendish, was about 30 years older than she, was a Marquess when they married, and was fighting on the King’s side of the English Civil Wars. The court was banished to France, where she had been a waiting lady to the English queen. Although she returned to England to try to reclaim some of her husband’s possessions, he was considered too big a traitor to the Parliamentary side to come back himself. It wasn’t until the Restoration that the couple was able to return and reclaim some of his fortune.

The novel is written in a telegraphic style that doesn’t seem telegraphic. That is, Dutton manages to convey a great deal of substance in a very short work (160 pages) through clever word choice and phrasing. The first half of the novel is in first person but it switches to third person, while still remaining from Margaret’s point of view.

I enjoyed this novel a lot. It is a feminist work written in a sharp, modern style, and it has inspired me to look for more to read about Cavendish. It ends with some recommendations for further reading and a few pages of bibliography.

I should note that the title of one of my favorite books, The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt, came from the title of a utopian novel by Cavendish. I didn’t know that.

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