The Convent of Pleasure and Other Plays

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), until recently remembered more as a flamboyant eccentric than as a serious writer, was in fact the most prolific, thought-provoking, and original woman writer of the Restoration. Cavendish is the author of many poems, short stories, biographies, memoirs, letters, philosophical and scientific works (including The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World, the first work of science fiction by a woman), and nineteen plays. "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays collects four of Cavendish's dramatic works that are among the most revealing of her attitudes toward marriage and her desire for fame. Loves Adventures (1662) centers on a woman succeeding in war and diplomacy by passing as a man. Similarly, the heroine of Bell in Campo (1662) rescues her husband at the head of an army of women in this tale of a marriage of near equals. The Convent of Pleasure (1668) proposes a separatist community of women and has received attention for its suggestion of lesbian sexuality. The Bridals (1662), a more typical restoration comedy satirizing marriage, rounds out the collection. Edited with notes and annotation by Anne Shaver, "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays also contains a timeline, biography and bibliography of the Duchess, an appreciation of Cavendish's life and work, and a bibliography of critical essays. Also included are all of Cavendish's epistles To the Reader as well as Other Preliminary Matter from Playes (1662), and Cavendish's original preface to Plays Never Before Printed (1668). A valuable collection from an extraordinary writer, "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays raises important issues about women and gender.

ISBN 0801861004   Pages 296 ISBN13 9780801861000 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press   Weight (grammes) 408 Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press   Published in Baltimore, MD Format Paperback   Height (mm) 229 Publication date 18 Jun 1999   Width (mm) 152 Non-book description xii, 280 p. :   Spine width (mm) 15 Library of Congress 98048352   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY 822.4   Interest age From 17 DEWEY edition DC21

		Acknowledgments
		Chronology
		Note on Editorial Method
		Introduction: Margaret Cavendish's Life as a Writer		1
		Loves Adventures. Play		21
		The Second Part of Loves Adventures		65
		The First Part of Bell in Campo		107
		The Second Part of Bell in Campo		141
		The Bridals. A Comedy		171
		The Convent of Pleasure. A Comedy		217
		Appendixes		249
A		Dedicatory Poems and Author's Epistles Preceding the Texts in Playes, 1662		253
B		An Introduction, 1662		268
C		Epistle Appended to Playes, 1662		271
D		Author's Epistle Preceding Plays Never Before Printed, 1668		273
E		Errata		274
		Selected Bibliography		277

Her introductory material places its initial emphasis upon biographical narrative _ an invaluable context in which to understand Cavendish's work, and most especially her dramatic writing, which is obsessed by the cultural anxieties surrounding the female intellectual of high birth who seeks a more public identity. -- Andrew Hiscock Review of English Studies

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