The Convent of Pleasure

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was an English philosopher, poet, playwright, and scientist. Born Mary Lucas, she was the youngest of eight children in a wealthy aristocratic family. With access to libraries and tutors, she showed intellectual promise and began writing at a young age, but felt pressure to pursue a more traditional feminine lifestyle. As a young woman, she found employment as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria, accompanying her into exile in France during the English Civil War. Although she struggled to acclimate to high society, she remained in her role for several years until marrying William Cavendish, the Marquess of Newcastle. With her husband’s support, Cavendish embarked on a career in literature, publishing broadly in the last decades of her life. Her major works include Poems and Fancies (1653), A True Relation of my Birth, Breeding, and Life (1856), Plays (1662), and Plays, Never Before Printed (1668), the latter of which includes her beloved comedy The Convent of Pleasure. The Blazing World (1666), a utopian novel, is considered a landmark work of science fiction and has earned praise from modern feminist scholars for its pioneering depiction of gender and sexuality. In 1667, Cavendish broke new ground as the first woman to attend a meeting of the Royal Society of London, where she engaged with such philosophers as Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, and René Descartes. A vitalist, she rejected Aristotelianism and published six books on natural philosophy in her lifetime, including Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666). Largely derided by such contemporaries as Samuel Pepys and Dorothy Osborne, Cavendish has since been recognized as a groundbreaking figure in the history of English literature.