Life After Print: The Sociability of Margaret Cavendish’s Plays, Never before Printed (1668) and What it

Means for Cavendish Studies

Shawn W. Moore – Texas A&M UniversityTwitter: @S_moores

Email: shawnw.moore@tamu.edu

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 – 1673)

The Life of the Thrice Noble, High and Puissant Prince, William Cavendishe (1667)

CCXI. Sociable Letters (1664)

Plays, Never before Printed (1668) – contains “The Female Wits”; “The Presence”; “The Bridals”; “The Convent of Pleasure”; and “A Piece of a Play”

Handwritten (neat italic) Corrections

From the Folger Library: Plays, Never before Printed (1668)

From Chawton House Library: Plays, Never before Printed (1668)

Paper-Slips

Strike-outs

Why these editions?Philosophicall Fancies. 1653.The Philosophical and Physical Opinions. 1655. (with an enlarged edition)Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies Pencil to the Life. 1656. (2 editions with the addendum A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life)Orations of Divers Sorts, Accommodated to Divers Places. 1662. (2 editions)Playes. 1662.CCXI Sociable Letters. 1664.Philosophical Letters: or, Modest Reflections Upon Some Opinions in Natural Philosophy, Maintained by Several Famous and Learned Authors of This Age, Expressed by Way of Letters. 1664.Poems and Fancies. 1654. (3 editions – Poems and Phancies. 1664., and Poems, or, Several Fancies in Verse: With the Animal Parliment, In Prose. 1668)The Worlds Olio. 1655. (2 editions)Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added, The Description of a new Blazing World. 1666. (2 editions)

- The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World. 1666.The Life of the Thrice Noble, High and Puissant Prince William Cavedishe. 1667. (with Latin translation)Grounds of Natural Philosophy. Revised edition. London: Printed by A. Maxwell. 1668.Plays, Never Before Printed. 1668.

Life After Print - Signatures

Life After Print: Marginalia (and other interesting markings)

Life After Print - Armorial Bookplate

Bookplate of Lord Napier Bookplate of 9th Lord Napier, William John Napier (recently sold at auction.

Life After Print - Armorial Bookplate

Dear Charles Le Moyen de Parvenir is safewith me I [send] [King] which had fallen[aside] (_ _ _ _ _) the [lucubrations] of (_ _ _)N. Wraxall which you [seemd] to [think]you would like to [peruse].

(_ _ _) the Duchesses plays ofwhich I request your kind acceptance

Yours [err]Walter Scott

Walter Scott to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, January 1819

Life After Print: Maintaining the text

What does it mean for Cavendish studies?

For more on Cavendish’s presentation copies:

• Jeffrey Masten, “Material Cavendish: Paper, Performance, ‘Social Virginity,’” Modern Language Quarterly 65 (2004).

• James Fitzmaurice, “Margaret Cavendish on Her Own Writing: Evidence from Revision and Handmade Correction,” PBSA 85.3 (1991).