Women's History Month | Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

To celebrate Women’s History Month, our Librarian, Laura, has created a display in the McGowin Library, celebrating Pembroke’s complete collection of the prolific works of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.

The daughter of an Essex gentleman, Margaret Lucas was born in 1623 in St John’s Abbey near Colchester, Essex. She married William Cavendish, Marquess (later Duke) of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1645. They lived in exile following the English Civil War, returning to England at the Restoration. She died in 1673, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Her intellectual pursuits and interests were wide ranging, authoring philosophical and scientific opinions, poetry, prose and plays, as well as writing a biography of her husband.

Margaret was a notorious figure in London society, becoming the first woman to visit The Royal Society. From 1655 onwards, she distributed copies of her books to Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, so that many have a complete set. Unconventionally, especially for a woman writer of her time, her works were published in folio. Folio editions appeared impressive and imposing on shelves due to their size. They were also much more expensive to produce and were usually reserved for classical works, such as Shakespeare’s collected edition of plays, published in 1623.

Her earliest, ‘The Philosophical and Physical Opinions’, has a dedication to Pembroke handwritten in latin on the title page:

'Lib. Coll. Pembrochiam ex dono Illustrissimae Heroinae Margareta Novo-Castronsis Marchionissae, Authorum'.

‘To the Library of Pembroke College, as the gift of the most illustrious Lady Margaret, Marchioness of Newcastle, Author’.

For more information on Margaret Cavendish, please click through to read a blog produced by the Pepys Library in Cambridge as well as a piece by William Poole in New College Notes 6.