Margaret Cavendish

The Blazing World (Illustrated) Margaret Cavendish

"Partly inspired by her studies of experimental philosophy, The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World was a work of varied and surprising imagination, combining elements of fantasy, science fiction, romance, utopian political theory, and philosophical and theological debate-the longest piece of fiction Margaret wrote," says Katie Whitaker in her 2002 biography Mad Madge (282). The main character, a young lady, is kidnapped by an amorous foreign merchant and taken to sea. The merchant's plan goes awry, however, when a storm forces his boat toward the North Pole and into "the Icy Sea." While the merchant and the other men aboard the boat all freeze to death, the woman survives because of "the light of her Beauty, the heat of her Youth, and Protection of the Gods". The boat then leaves our world and enters the "Blazing World" - so named "for the extraordinary brightness of its comet-like stars," Whitaker writes (282)."At last, the Boat still passing on, was forced into another World; for it is impossible to round this Worlds Globe from Pole to Pole, so as we do from East to West; because the Poles of the other World, joining to the Poles of this, do not allow any further passage to surround the World that way; but if any one arrives to either of these Poles, he is either forced to return, or to enter into another World..."