The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy during the Scientific Revolution

Acknowledgments

This book began as a footnote to my study of Pierre Gassendi. Margaret Cavendish was almost unknown in 1984 when I published “A Science Turned Upside Down: Feminism and the Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle,” Huntington Library Quarterly 47 (1984): 289-307. In the decades since, both Cavendish studies and gender history have grown in importance and forced a reexamination of seventeenth-century intellectual life. I wish to thank those who have contributed to my understanding of Cavendish’s natural philosophy , by both critiquing my work directly and inspiring me to ask questions that did not occur to me when I began my work on this extraordinary woman. In particular, I benefited from the comments and suggestions of Mary Terrall, Mary Baine Campbell, Paula Findlen, James Fitzmaurice, Brandie Siegfried, Sara Mendelson, Stephen Clucas, Hilda Smith, William Newman, Bernard Lightman , and Lawrence Principe. The advice of Margaret J. Osler has been, as always , invaluable. Steven Shapin has helped shape my thinking about the early modern scientific community. The work of Sarah Hutton and Michael Hunter has provided much needed context for the history of the Royal Society and the role of women in natural philosophy in the seventeenth century. Katharine Park’s work on wonders and popular culture helped broaden my understanding of Cavendish . Although she probably doesn’t remember, Carolyn Merchant’s early response to a paper I delivered on Cavendish also set me thinking in different directions . All errors in this book are, of course, my own. My colleagues in the Oregon State History Department works-in-progress group have patiently listened to much of this book, in various incarnations, and it is richer for their comments. I would like to thank them all: Paul Farber, Mary Jo Nye, Robert Nye, Jeff Sklansky, Mina Carson, Ben Mutschler, William Husband , Marisa Chappell, Kara Ritzhaber, Maureen Healy, Jon Katz, Nicole von Germeten, and Paul Kopperman. In addition, I profited from the advice of Gary Ferngren and Anita Guerrini. I was very fortunate that during my time at Oregon Acknowledgments x a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s State a doctoral program in the History of Science was established through an endowment by Thomas Hart Horning and Mary Jones Horning. This program brings eminent scholars to OSU and creates an invigorating climate for the development of ideas about the history and culture of science. I also want to thank my colleagues in the International Margaret Cavendish Society. Every two years, scholars from many disciplines and many places come together to share their insights. It is a society remarkable for its cohesiveness and civility. The many different approaches to Cavendish’s work have enriched my own. In addition to Brandie Siegfried, James Fitzmaurice, and Sara Mendelson, the current, former and future presidents of the society, I would like to thank Gweno Williams, Emma Rees, and Erna Kelly. Support for my project was provided by a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities , a William Andrews Clark Short-Term Fellowship, a Folger Library Shortterm Fellowship, an Oregon State College of Liberal Arts Research Fellowship, an OSU Library Travel grant, and a fellowship at the Center for the Humanities at OSU. Librarians at Chatsworth House, U.K., the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Folger Library, and the Clark Library have been invariably helpful. At OSU, Elissa Curcio has helped me greatly in all matters Cavendish. Parts of this study have appeared in different guises in “Margaret Cavendish and Patronage,” Endeavour 23 (1999): 130–32; “Leviathan and the Lady: Cavendish ’s Critique of Hobbes in the Philosophical Letters,” in Authorial Conquests: Essays on Genre in the Writings of Margaret Cavendish, edited by Line Cottegnies and Nancy Weitz (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 2003; London: Associated Universities Presses, 2003), 40–58; and “Métaphysique et Mab: Le Premier Atomisme de Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673),” in Gassendi et la modernité, edited by Sylvie Taussig (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008). I have presented papers on Cavendish at the History of Science Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and at the UCLA Working Historians Group. I am particularly grateful to the unknown questioner who asked me at the History of Science meeting in Cambridge in 2003 who the audience was for the joke Cavendish played on the Royal Society. Much of my work since then has been based on that question. The editors at the Johns Hopkins University Press have been exacting and encouraging. I wish to thank Robert J. Brugger...