
Margaret the First
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Lucy Rayner
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By:
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Danielle Dutton
Margaret the First dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional 17th-century duchess. The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when being a writer was not an option open to women.
As one of the queen's attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, she was exiled to France when King Charles I was overthrown. As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career. After the war her work earned her both fame and infamy in England; at the dawn of daily newspapers, she was "Mad Madge", an original tabloid celebrity. Yet Margaret was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London - a mainstay of the Scientific Revolution - and the last for another 200 years.
Margaret the First is very much a contemporary novel set in the past. Written with lucid precision and sharp cuts through narrative time, it is a gorgeous and wholly new approach to imagining the life of a historical woman.
©2016 Danielle Dutton (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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What did you love best about Margaret the First?
I didn't know about Margaret and that she was one of the first women to write and publish and to speak her mind in a man's world. She was portrayed as having a fantastic imagination but was able to keep up with the best minds of her era.What about Lucy Rayner’s performance did you like?
She did a perfect reading of a book that had a unique writing style. Her pacing was excellent and her low male voice was tolerable, though I wish women didn't feel they have to distort their voices to read a male character's part.Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, but I couldn't.Any additional comments?
This is a delightful book - I felt sympathy for Margaret's rejections and admiration for her accomplishments. That her husband supported her writing was also admirable.A delightful story
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Margaret was quite a character
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A short, vibrant, nearly perfect novella
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Disjointed story telling
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Had to complete for book club
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This is a good summary of the novel. I’ve never read a more meaningless book. The characters have no inner monologue, no feelings, no ambitions. If writers are taught to “show, don’t tell”, then Danielle Dutton was absent from school that day. Margaret the First is essentially a 100+ page list of events. We know that a character is sad when the author says “She was sad.” Not by experiencing the character’s challenges or point of view.
Utterly pointless.
Meaningless
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