(New York, NY: Catapult, 2016)
Margaret the First was not a queen, like Katherine of Aragon or Ann Boleyn. But she could be considered an early queen in the history of women’s literature: Margaret Lucas Cavendish, a 17th century Duchess, the daughter of Royalists, fled to France when Charles I was overthrown. Cavendish was an accomplished writer and thinker who published poems, philosophy, plays and utopian science fiction. Danielle Dutton’s novel, Margaret the First, published by Catapult, is a literary page-turner, which explores Cavendish’s adventurous life, weaving historical details into a spool of crafted, poetic prose. Margaret the First is Dutton’s third book, her second novel, and a natural outgrowth of her earlier work. Attempts at a Life, (Tarpaulin, 2007), was a collection of prose pieces, experimenting with genre. Sprawl, a novel, (Siglio Press, 2010) was inspired by the still-life work of photographer, Laura Letinsky, and explores the inner life of a housewife, with references to female literary characters, who happen to be wives in other texts. Dutton’s interest in women writers is also practical: she is the founder of an independent press, Dorothy, which publishes fiction by women.
Even though women now have greater opportunities for education and employment than they did in 17th’s century England, many of the issues that Virginia Woolf raised in her lecture, “A Room of One’s Own,” at Newnham and Girton College, Cambridge in 1929, are contemporary. The purpose of the lectures was to point out the importance of women’s education—a freedom we now take for granted. Woolf’s often quoted line, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” is still true. Dutton brings to life many obstacles that the historical figure Margaret Cavendish faced as a writer concerning money, education, freedom, and space. While Margaret Lucas Cavendish was raised on a large estate and in enormous privilege, that wealth was diminished by political turmoil and war and was dependent upon fickle royalty. She had little control over her finances as a young girl, and later, as a married woman. In 1652, when she returned to claim her husband’s confiscated property, she was told she had no right to it. Maybe that denial was what spurred her to submit her first book, Poems and Fancies (1653) to a publisher, seeking recognition in another public venue since the law did not recognize her.
Despite the fact that the opportunity for formal education for women was limited, Margaret Lucas, thanks to her marriage to William Cavendish, First Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a marquess, managed to socialize with some of the leading figures of the day: Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, and William Davenant, to name a few. Her husband was a sympathetic character, a supportive, intellectual companion who continually celebrated her literary successes and encouraged her during difficult times. She was disappointed she was unable to have children. Even though she suffered sadness and grief, she led an active social life and the salons at their home provided intellectual stimulation. Yet she still felt invisible in the more public male world. And, when her books were published, she was mostly subject to scorn and contempt because she had not attended university and did not know Latin. But she fought back and wrote a third book entitled Philosophical and Physical Opinions, (1655.) During the Restoration, books were printed in English so she could educate herself on the latest new ideas.
To Woolf’s famous line, one should add that a woman must not only be financially independent and have a room of her own, but also see the world and experience life in order to write well. At sixteen, Margaret Lucas bemoaned the lack of adventure in her life. However, after she joined the Queen Henrietta Maria’s court at Oxford, her life changed dramatically—soon after, she fled war with the queen to King Louis XIV’s court in Paris. In 1645, Margaret Lucas married a man thirty years older, lived the life of an expatriate and socialized with intellectual figures and royalty. She also suffered barrenness, disappointment, grief, financial deprivation, and public rejection. Yet she experienced the joys of love, intellectual companionship, the pleasures of solitude and a literary life, as well.
Most historical novels of British royalty on the market are sprawling tomes, detailing court intrigue, beheadings, assassination, and revolution. Readers derive great pleasure from immersing themselves in these sagas, gaining insights into the feelings and motivations of real historical characters. Many novelists may adopt the point of view of a minor historical character or provide an alternate angle on a known historical controversy or event. For example, Margaret George’s Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers takes the viewpoint of the fool; Phillippa Gregory’s The Constant Princess focuses on Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife; Helen Hollick’s The Forever Queen centers on Emma of Normandy; and Alison Weirs’ Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey gives a portrait of the grandniece of Henry VIII. However, Danielle Dutton condenses time, rather than expands it—a typical characteristic of the historical novel. Dutton unearths the poetry and drama in Margaret Cavendish’s life, twining personal tragedy with big history. For example, the Cavendishes were summoned by Prince Charles from their exile in Paris. When they reached Rotterdam, Prince Charles had already organized a fleet and left for England. The Royalists lost the Battle of Colchester, Margaret Cavendish’s childhood home was destroyed, and the mob defiled the graves of her family. The news, then, became more dire: “The King of England was convicted of treason. Then the King of England was dead. It was Tuesday. It was 1649. Parliament hacked off Charles I’s head outside the Banqueting House at Whitehall.” Dutton combines bald facts succinctly with the visceral description of Charles I’s execution.
Like the subject of her novel, Margaret Cavendish, Dutton experiments with genre—biography, history, fiction, and poetry. Without losing the exciting thread of the narrative of Cavendish’s life, Dutton also utilizes fresh language and sensory images to show the richness of her character’s inner life from an early age. For instance, she found refuge in nature and her imagination on her family’s extensive estate:
A summer afternoon, age nine, first beneath French honeysuckle, then moving nearer the brook to observe butterflies that gather at pale daffodils, a dead sparrow spotted along the way, and a sonnet begun on the ability of a sparrow to suffer pain, I Margaret—Queen of the Tree People—discovered an invisible world. There, on the surface of the water, river-foam bubbles encased a jubilant cosmos. Whole civilizations lasted for only a moment!
The novel is also well-researched and gives us the flavor of the epoch. Dutton laces fascinating historical tidbits and anecdotes into the narrative. Instead of hormonal fertility treatments, we learn that a woman unable to conceive in the 17th century would be injected in the rectum with extracts from flowers. And just how lavish were the parties? The Cavendishes threw a ball for Charles II to curry favor: “We stuffed Delft bowls with winter roses—their petals tissue-thin—and draped the painter’s studio in silk.” At the ball, King Charles II flirted with her and whispered in her ear, “You are something of a celebrity in London.” While Samuel Pepys never met her, entries from his diary inform us of Cavendish’s reputation: “The Duchess of Newcastle is all the pageant now discoursed on.” Or how scientists, eager to make more discoveries, justified cruelty to animals in the name of progress: They bled a spaniel on one side, while “the blood of a mastiff was run into the spaniel through a quill.”
Dutton shows that Margaret Cavendish was a courageous, yet also a flawed, human character—and no angel, either. Perhaps frustrated by the lack of response to her science fiction novel, The Blazing World (1666), and in a bid to get attention, she upstaged her husband’s play with an outrageous outfit: “her dress is gold, her breast bared, and her nipples are painted red.” Afterwards, she felt great remorse for causing him public embarrassment. Whatever her eccentricities, we remember Margaret Cavendish not for her flamboyant clothes, but because, despite the odds, she wrote and published—she spoke at a time when women simply did not. When Richard Flecknoe, the English dramatist and poet, introduced her to his friends, she asked them, “Have you noticed? How few plays begin or end with a woman character speaking?” The men ignored her. Three hundred and forty-three years after Margaret Cavendish’s death, the Duchess speaks in Daniel Dutton’s novel, Margaret the First.
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Gretchen McCullough is a writer and translator, teaching at the American University in Cairo. Her stories and essays have appeared in: The Texas Review, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Barcelona Review, NPR, Storysouth and Guernica. Translations in English and Arabic with Mohamed Metwalli include: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail inTranslation and Al-Mustaqbel. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories from Cairo (2011) and a collection of short stories, Shahrazad’s Tooth, (2013) were published by Afaq Publishers in Cairo. You can read more of her work by visiting her website.