Introduction
The sparsity of surviving manuscripts of anything written by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (née Lucas), seems the more extraordinary by comparison with the mound of literary papers left (chiefly in the Portland collection at the University of Nottingham) by her equally prolific husband, William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. It is not altogether surprising, however, given her obvious and exclusive devotion to the publication of her numerous works in print, where alone she could realize her frequently declared ambition: ‘neither for beauty, wit, titles, wealth or power, but as they [her publications] are steps to raise me to fame's tower, which is to live by remembrance in after-ages’. To this might be added her disincentive to rely on manuscripts because, as she said on more than one occasion, ‘My ordinary handwriting is so bad as few can read it’, for which reason she apologised to her correspondent Constantijn Huygens in 1657 for having letters ‘writt by an other hand’.
Indeed, apart from her surviving letters, the only substantial series of extant manuscript materials for which she was responsible are the press corrections which she and her secretaries made in exempla of her printed works (the original manuscripts of which she then seems to have burned). A survey and discussion of these corrected exempla has been made by James Fitzmaurice in ‘Margaret Cavendish on Her Own Writing: Evidence from Revision and Hamdmade Correction’, PBSA, 85 (1991), 297-307 (with four facsimile examples after p. 304). He cites the following works and exempla as containing manuscript corrections and deletions (these are not given separate entries below):
Philosophical and Physical Opinions (London, 1655). Corrected exempla in the British Library; Christ's College, Jesus College, King's College, and Peterhouse, Cambridge; and All Souls College, Pembroke College, The Queen's College, and Wadham College, Oxford.
Philosophical and Physical Opinions (2nd edition, London, 1663). Corrected exempla in the Bodleian Library; All Souls College, Balliol College, Brasenose College, Christ Church, Merton College, Pembroke College, and The Queen's College, Oxford.
Playes (London, 1662). Corrected exemplum in Princeton University.
Orations of Divers Sorts (London, 1662). Corrected exempla in the Bodleian Library; All Souls College, Balliol College, Brasenose College, Exeter College, Jesus College, Merton College, and Pembroke College, Oxford.
CCXI Sociable Letters (London, 1664). Corrected exempla in the British Library; Southwell Cathedral; Christ's College, Corpus Christi College, Jesus College, King's College, Pembroke College, Queens' College, St Catharine's College, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge; All Souls College, Brasenose College, Hertford College, and Pembroke College, Oxford; Princeton University; Stanford University; University of South Carolina; Yale University; and (possibly) University of Durham Library.
The Life of the Thrice Noble, High and Puissant Prince William Cavendishe (London, 1667). Corrected exempla in the British Library (3 exempla); Cambridge University library (3 exempla); Christ's College (2 exempla), Clare College, Corpus Christi College, Emmanuel College, Gonville and Caius College, Jesus College, King's College, Pembroke College, Peterhouse, Queens' College, Sidney Sussex College, St Catharine's College, St John's College (2 exempla), and Trinity College, Cambridge; Bodleian Library; Balliol College, Brasenose College, Christ Church, Corpus Christi College, Jesus College, Magdalen College, Merton College, Pembroke College, The Queen's College, St John's College, and Wadham College, Oxford; Clark Library; Folger Shakespeare Library; Huntington Library (2 exempla); Newberry Library; Victoria and Albert Museum; and Southwell Cathedral. Also exempla owned by individuals including one owned by D. Woodward and one, inscribed ‘Thomasin Greene ex dono Roberti Gould Rectris de Shankton in agro Leicestriensi’, owned by Peter Beal.
Plays, Never Before Printed (London, 1668). Corrected exempla in the British Library (3 exempla); Cambridge University library; Christ's College, Corpus Christi College, Gonville and Caius College, Jesus College, King's College, Pembroke College, Peterhouse, St John's College, Trinity College, Cambridge; Bodleian Library; Folger Shakespeare Library; Huntington Library, Newberry Library, and one formerly owned by John Evelyn.
Grounds of Natural Philosophy (London, 1668). Corrected exempla in Cambridge University library; Christ's College, Corpus Christi College, Emmanuel College, Gonville and Caius College, Jesus College, King's College, Pembroke College, Peterhouse, Sidney Sussex College, St Catharine's College, and Trinity College, Cambridge; and the Huntington Library.
The Description of a New World Called the Blazing-World (London, 1668). Corrected exempla in the British Library; Cambridge University library; Christ's College, Corpus Christi College, Gonville and Caius College, Jesus College, King's College, Pembroke College, Peterhouse, Sidney Sussex College, and Trinity College, Cambridge; Bodleian Library; Folger Shakespeare Library; and Newberry Library.
No doubt this list represents only a fraction of the exempla of works by her which were corrected in manuscript. It is also clear that a number (but by no means all) of the exempla cited were ex dono authoris volumes, presented by her to academic institutions, as is witnessed by their various ‘thank-you letters’ (including ones by Thomas Hobbes, Jasper Mayne, Walter Charleton, Thomas Barlow, and Thomas Shadwell) printed in A Collection of Letters and Poems (London, 1668). Many other people are known to have been recipients of presentation exempla, including Robert Creighton, Thomas Tally, Henry More, John Fell, Moore, Lord Berkeley, Sir Samuel Tuke, John Evelyn, Joseph Glanvil, Sir Theodore Mayerne, and various of her continental associates, such as Constantijn Huygens (for the University of Leiden), Samuel Sorbière, and Jacques Duarte, among others. As Fitzmaurice notes, the polite reception given to presentation exempla sent to universities did not prevent some of them from being subsequently annotated by readers, often with offensive or derogatory verses or remarks.
The only other known manuscript relating to her literary writings is that of a masque, The Lotterie, which is incorporated in a manuscript with an entertainment by her husband, but which has been attributed to her (CvM 1).
Otherwise we have a later report, for what it is worth, of three notable manuscripts by her which are no longer known to survive. In George Ballard's Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (Oxford, 1752; edited by Ruth Perry, Detroit, 1985), p. 281, he claims: ‘In the library of the late Mr. Thomas Rawlinson was The Dutchess of Newcastle's Poems, two volumes, folio MS. Vide Richardson's catalogue (p. 50). And in the library of the late Bishop Willis was another MS. of her poems in folio, vide the catalogue (p. 55).’
For all her poor handwriting, Margaret Cavendish certainly engaged in personal correspondence, both in England and on the continent. At present 23 original letters by her are known (CvM 3-5), the majority addressed to her future husband, though others may well come to light in due course.
While in Mary Evelyn's words, the ‘amasingly vain and ambitious’ Margaret Cavendish was sometimes mocked for her extravagance, and she was also disliked by her stepdaughters, her wide circle of correspondence suggests more favourable attitudes to her on occasions. One elaborate compliment is a poem headed Loves Metamorphosis: Or Apollo and Daphne (beginning ‘Scarce had Aurora showne her crimson face’) written and dedicated to ‘the most Judicious ladye her Excellencie’ by her ‘servant’ William Sampson, the apparently presentation manuscript of which is in the British Library, Harley MS 5847, ff. 319r-36r.
Peter Beal