Margaret the First

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was eccentric even by celebrity-author standards, so it's fitting that her imagined life story defies the conventions of typical historical fiction. Instead of a tome dense with physical details and awkward digressions, Dutton has written an altogether airier concoction. A poetic style, full of feathers, silks, stars, and mirrors, evokes the heady richness of aristocratic Europe during the Scientific Revolution and echoes Margaret's quicksilver thought. And all this pulses brightly against the ominous, gray backdrop of the English Civil War. Intriguingly, Margaret's motives complicate her portrait: was she an early-Modern feminist or a proto-Kardashian—or both? Meet Mad Madge and decide for yourself.