MARGARET THE FIRST

by Danielle Dutton

I will start by saying this is a strange little book, and yet I want everyone to read it. I don’t remember who or how this book came to be on my list, but when it came in from the library it felt like fate. I had just finished purchasing tickets to a brand new play called Mad Madge by Rose Napoli and the subject is the same woman. Margaret Cavendish was an aristocrat from the early 17th century who was one of the first women to publish her own writing. And she wrote seven books!

Margaret the First is a novel, but follows her life very closely and reads like an intermittent diary. She begins her story living in the English countryside, rejected by her seven siblings as weird. To escape her family, she gets herself invited to be a lady-in-waiting to the queen. But no sooner does she arrive, than Charles I is beheaded and the queen and court must flee to France. Margaret doesn’t fit in with the court either. So, when the banished prince’s advisor William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, asks her to marry him, she says "yes."  Margaret and William spend the next 25 years in Antwerp awaiting the restoration of the monarchy. It is there that she begins to write.  When they finally return to England, Margaret gains nootoriety for her writing and opinions, as well as for her elaborate dress and eccentric behavior.

In addition to writing a very good story, Dutton does an incredible job of helping the reader see the world through Margaret’s very strange lens. When she does something outrageous like showing up topless to the opening night of her husband’s play, it seems completely logical and the reader cheers her on. Margaret's story is one of the best illustrations of the boundaries and obstacles that have kept smart, interesting women shackled and silenced for so much of history. That Dutton gets this message across without ever mentioning it, is refreshing and extremely clever. (Lily)