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Margaret the First

Danielle Dutton

3.54 · Rating details · 2,922 ratings · 498 reviews

‘I am as Ambitious as ever any of my Sex was, is, or can be; though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second, yet I endeavour to be Margaret the First.’

When Margaret Cavendish addressed the Royal Society in 1667, Samuel Pepys recorded that her dress was ‘so antic and her deportment so unordinary, that I do not like her at all’. And indeed, here vividly brought to ...more

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Hardcover, 160 pages

Published December 8th 2016 by Scribe UK (first published March 15th 2016)

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Jan 27, 2017 Hannah Greendale rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, adult, fiction, historical-fiction

Margaret Cavendish wrote utopian science fiction as well as feminist plays, essays, and poems in the 17th century. She went on to have her work published at a time when women were not supposed to be writers and the world believed women had no business being published.

The key to enjoying Margaret the First is to open the book with proper expectations. To begin with, it's much shorter than the average novel, coming in at just one hundred sixty pages. It's a condensed but lyrical jaunt through Mar ...more

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May 23, 2016 Richard Derus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Rating: 6* of five

Review of MARGARET THE FIRST at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud. This gorgeous-looking

book by the wonderful talented writer and publisher, Danielle Dutton, gets 6 stars of five for the joy I got in meeting the rescued 17th-century true original character. How many of those are there ever? And the odds that even an aristocratic woman could sustain such an outrageously public persona! Catapult, the publisher, made book lovely to match its joys of writing. ...more

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Apr 08, 2017 Olive Fellows (abookolive) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, lit-fic, favorites-2017, favorites-all-time, covers-i-love

PHENOMENAL. I have a strong feeling this will be the best book I read this year.

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Jan 05, 2020 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novella, 2020, fiction, historical-fiction

"I had rather been a meteor, than a star in a crowd."
- Danielle Dutton, Margaret the First

"...the mind is without a sex!"
- Danielle Dutton, Margaret the First

description

A short, vibrant, nearly perfect novella. I'm not sure if I loved it more because of the prose, the protagonist, the setting, or because it was infused with life, energy, worlds. I'll steal an hour at lunch to finish my review tomorrow at work. Lovely.

The book is an ode to feminism, science, knowledge, prose, and marriage. My only disappoin ...more

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Feb 04, 2018 Simon rated it liked it · review of another edition

I had never heard of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle until this book came out and everyone got very excited about her and it. I enjoyed this book though sadly I have to say that the final two parts, excluding the epilogue, went rather down hill after the first book was told from her narration. Dutton seems to have got her voice and character, even though it felt slightly like a ghost telling the tale, and then seemed to turn it into a biography as ‘she did this’ and ‘she did that’ which ...more

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Mar 10, 2016 Book Riot Community added it · review of another edition

A fabulous (and fabulist) re-imagining of the infamous Margaret Cavendish, a seventeenth-century duchess who wrote feminist philosophy and utopian science fiction in an era when being an eccentric (see: attending the theater in a topless ballgown) and writer was an unthinkable career path for a woman. Margaret the First isn’t a historical novel, however; magnificently weird and linguistically dazzling, it’s a book as much about how difficult and rewarding it is for an ambitious, independent, and ...more

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May 28, 2018 Puck rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, biography, cover-love, underrated

"The whole story of this lady is a romance, and everything she does."

A lyrical biographic of a remarkable woman who deserves to be remembered. Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) was a writer of feminist plays, philosophical essays and author of one of the first science-fiction stories (The Blazing World).
While she caused already scandal by doing this, her dramatic and shocking actions (tits out at the theatre!) made her famous among the English elite and the common people.

But neither her hus ...more

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May 13, 2020 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Jenny (Reading Envy) by: https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contem...

Shelves: ebooks, read2020, novella, hoopla

Margaret Cavendish was a fascinating person in the 17th century, an intellectual and published writer long before this was acceptable for women, the first woman to present to the Royal Society of London. A short novel is probably the best vessel for the story in my mind, although I wonder if the author might have arranged it differently than in such a linear fashion, which made it seem more fragmented than it needed to be.

I did experience a brief moment of regret for not forcing myself to finis ...more

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Apr 18, 2016 Heidi The Reader rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction

Margaret the First is written like a dream- the scenes come and go with little or no explanation in them and years pass in the blink or an eye or turning of the page. Usually, I read historical fiction to immerse myself in the details of a time period, but this book doesn't really cater to that. It's a bubble in the wind or a glimpse from the windows of a fast moving car. It hints at depth more than delivers it. But still, despite this strangeness, I was mainly captivated.

Margaret describing her Margaret the First is written like a dream- the scenes come and go with little or no explanation in them and years pass in the blink or an eye or turning of the page. Usually, I read historical fiction to immerse myself in the details of a time period, but this book doesn't really cater to that. It's a bubble in the wind or a glimpse from the windows of a fast moving car. It hints at depth more than delivers it. But still, despite this strangeness, I was mainly captivated.

Margaret describing her mother: "As for our mother, she was beautiful beyond the ruins of time. None of her children would be crooked, of course, nor in any ways deformed. Neither were we dwarfish, or of a giantlike stature, but proportional, with brown hair, sound teeth, sweet breath, and tunable voices- not given to wharling in the throat, I mean, or speaking through the nose, unless we had a cold- yet we were none so prone to beauty as she, and I perhaps the least of them all." pg 14 (ebook) Beautiful.

Margaret describing the difference between her childhood education and her brother's: "You must wear chicken-skin gloves on your hands all night," my mother began... "When inside the house," my mother went on, "you must not spend all your time writing little books."... "Virtue," my mother was saying, "beauty and virtue." Yet out the window, as she spoke, under a net of branches, my youngest brother, Charlie, arrived on the lawn with a hawk. Hood lifted, the hawk flew off. It is nobler to be a boy, I thought- and looked back with nostalgia, as if I just had been." pg 18 (ebook)

The first time Margaret speaks out in a group of intellectuals: "A second man then sportingly suggested they debate the nature of woman. "You will find, sir," I abruptly spoke, "women as difficult to be known and understood as the universe." The room fell silent. I was surprised as any man." pg 43 (ebook) This may be a work of fiction, but I feel like that's something that Margaret would have actually said. Don't you?

The attitudes of that time period were astonishing: Unlike Mr. Hobbes in his Leviathan, then under production in Paris, William thought that common man should be kept illiterate and happy, with sport and common prayer. "Too much reading," he said, "has made the mob defiant." I chewed my mutton and considered." pg 56 (ebook)

Margaret undergoes a lot of unfortunate medical treatment in this book. I thought that this passage was charming and really showed the time period rather than purely grotesque, bodily manipulations like some of the other doctor visits: "He (the doctor) tapped and patted, then scribbled in a book: how clear, how pale, how pink. I looked, he assured me, ten years younger than my age, in blossom, in perfect health, and prescribed only a new herb from China called tea. "The decoction of it drunk warm doth marvels," he told Charles. "Very comforting, abates fumes." To me he spoke nonsense, as he would to any child, suggesting candy or gossip, or candy with gossip, to lift my mood." pg 64 (ebook)

The science of the 1600's was so off from reality as to seem absurd now in retrospect. Take this scene where Margaret and an intellectual friend are viewing a map of the North Pole:"Here," he said, "lies the very pole of the pole of the Earth, where all the oceans' waters circle round and fall, just as if you'd poured them down a funnel in your head, only to see them come back out the southern end. And in the middle of the middle sits a large black rock, the very pole of the pole of the pole of the Earth, wholly magnetic, possibly magic, and thirty-three miles across!" "Where is the ice?" she wanted to know." pg 100 (ebook)

In this passage, Margaret's husband asks her what she wants in life and I thought that Dutton captured the (occasionally) unsettled attitude of every woman who has ever lived nearly perfectly:"But Margaret wanted the whole house to move three feet to the left. It was indescribable what she wanted. She was restless. She wanted to work. She wanted to be thirty people. She wanted to wear a cap of pearls and a coat of bright blue diamonds. To live as nature does, in many ages, in many brains." pg 102 (ebook) I've been there.

If the reader is looking for a historical fiction with more umph to it, she may want to consider The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand by Elizabeth Berg. But, if she wants a frothy, fun, and fantastical journey into what might have been, look no further than Margaret the First. ...more

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Mar 22, 2017 Simon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-read, history, fiction, gender

Margaret Cavendish is one of a number of women philosophers who are now beginning to be resurrected and studied alongside their canonical male counterparts. The impression of Cavendish given by this beautiful and striking book, however, is of her isolation. She reads avidly (in English only) works by members of the nascent Royal Society, with many of whom she was socially connected. But everything we learn about her own thinking marks it as the product of fantasy and imagination. This impression ...more

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Jan 27, 2017 Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

A heady, lyrical take on the life of an extraordinary woman. This is a fictional study of Margaret Cavendish (a 17th-century British duchess and writer) that brings her fanciful inner world to life, laying her passions and talents beside her flaws and contradictions. And Dutton writes clearly and concisely (150 pages, people!) while leaving room for delicious ambiguity. Absolutely gorgeous.

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Mar 05, 2016 Lyn Elliott rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Dutton’s writing gleams with precision, sometimes sharp and brilliant, almost crystalline, sometimes brittle, sometimes flattened, as her difficult subject reveals herself, and is revealed, in the course of this short work of art.
For it is a work of art, swirling with colour, almost pointillist placement of words, images and ideas, each section engaging the reader in a different way.

The prose is dazzling, the subject so difficult to come to terms with it took Dutton 10 years to write. The book Dutton’s writing gleams with precision, sometimes sharp and brilliant, almost crystalline, sometimes brittle, sometimes flattened, as her difficult subject reveals herself, and is revealed, in the course of this short work of art.
For it is a work of art, swirling with colour, almost pointillist placement of words, images and ideas, each section engaging the reader in a different way.

The prose is dazzling, the subject so difficult to come to terms with it took Dutton 10 years to write. The book is sensibly short, miniatures rather than broad canvas.

In the first section Dutton imagines Margaret Lucas’ childhood, then youth and marriage to William Cavendish, attached to the Royal Court in exile during the years of the English Civil War and then the Commonwealth. Here she has Margaret speak in first person, sensitive, imaginative, intensely shy, prickly, melancholic, childless, brave, independent, anxious and resentful.
Margaret says of herself: ‘Bold on the page, in life I was only Margaret.…I’d hardly set down my quill before I took it up again, writing stories unconnected – of a pimp, a virgin, a rogue – strung up like pearls on a thread…I ultimately declare: “I am very ambitious, yet ‘tis neither for Beauty, Wit, Titles, Wealth or Power but as they are steps to raise me to Fames Tower”’.

With the Cavendish's return from exile to Restoration England, we are pushed a little further away, as the voice shifts from first to third person. Margaret's own words, drawn from her writings, flow into the text, so that we continue to feel we are part of her inner world of imagination and dreams.

Dutton herself says about the change of voice:
' I was trying to evoke her writing through my own, but more in the spirit of her work, and the irregular, unconventional beauty of her life, which had itself a sort of artistic bravura. My reason for those narrative switches, though, was much more to do with the needs of my own book, how to manage the reader’s sense of distance from Margaret at different moments in the development of her sense of self, to in some way enact the distance she comes to feel toward herself and her own experience'. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/margar...

And in an interview with Kate Zambreno in BOMB Magazine she talks about her first encounter with Margaret Cavendish through Virginia Woolf, who wrote: “What a vision of loneliness and riot the thought of Margaret Cavendish brings to mind! as if some giant cucumber had spread itself all over the roses and carnations in the garden and choked them to death.” 'So Woolf’s take on Margaret absolutely affected my own [Dutton], but I don’t see Margaret quite as Woolf saw her. For me she is that awkward cucumber, but also the roses and carnations. She spreads. She crushes. She’s crushed. Margaret is the whole garden. http://bombmagazine.org/article/90922...

We follow the extremes of Margaret' flights, plunging from wild fantasy to deep melancholia, through pride, arrogance, anger and shame, and in the end I think I was just a bit exhausted by the ride. ...more

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Dec 08, 2016 Eric Anderson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This isn’t your typical historical novel, but its protagonist Margaret Cavendish wasn’t your typical 17th century English aristocrat either. Attendant to Queen Henrietta Maria and married to William Cavendish, First Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, she could have spent her days reclining on a chaise lounge. Instead she engaged with the scientific, literary and philosophical ideas of her day by writing her own essays, plays and unconventional romances. Danielle Dutton has written an inventive fiction ...more

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Feb 15, 2016 Crysta Coburn rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I really struggled to finish this book, if one can really call it a book. It's more like a rambling prose poem with very nearly zero character development and no plot whatsoever. Margaret Cavendish is presented as an infantile and delusional silly woman. At no point do I see her be clever or witty, I just have the author's assurances that she is so. Vain, whiney, depressed, and out-of touch, yes. She was depressing to read about. And why the hell does the author switch point of view half way thr ...more

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Jan 18, 2017 Suzanne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: best-books-under-200-pages

The imagery scattered across the pages, blazing like gemstones, like fireworks, like constellations! The rhythms of the language, the stream of consciousness, and events liberated from the tyranny of time-- it’s all very Woolfian. High praise indeed.

In fact, Dutton says in her Author’s Note (page 161) that “the book incorporates, here and there, lines and images from Woolf’s own writing” and while I could not identify specific examples borrowed from Virginia, I was thinking of her long before I The imagery scattered across the pages, blazing like gemstones, like fireworks, like constellations! The rhythms of the language, the stream of consciousness, and events liberated from the tyranny of time-- it’s all very Woolfian. High praise indeed.

In fact, Dutton says in her Author’s Note (page 161) that “the book incorporates, here and there, lines and images from Woolf’s own writing” and while I could not identify specific examples borrowed from Virginia, I was thinking of her long before I got to that Note. Her influence absolutely permeates this book. It reminded me of nothing so much as Orlando with its issues of gender and casualness about time. While Margaret was told chronologically, there was no slavish devotion to linking each event to another, rather an organic flow of episodes that illustrated the tone, the meaning of a life.

When the Scheldt froze this time, I stood at the window, watching Antwerp’s well-to-do slide by. Their sleighs, gliding, were lit by footmen with torches. William easily persuaded me to go out. Bundled in blankets, we rode to the shore, to revelers skating, vendors selling cakes and fried potatoes under lamps. The frozen expanse glistened in the dark, icicles licking the pier like devil’s tongues. William stepped down and waited for me to follow. And – oh!— how I longed to go, to dance with him on incorporeal legs. But I couldn’t. Or I wouldn’t. He climbed back up. We turned around. William looked strangely heartbroken, and we rode through the streets in silence. Then alone at my desk, I imagined a frozen river in me: “a smooth glassy ice, whereupon my thoughts are sliding.”

I first became aware of 17th century author and celebrity eccentric Margaret Cavendish through references to her in Siri Hustvedt’s brilliant The Blazing World , which also happens to be the title of one of Margaret Cavendish’s books. I still haven’t read Cavendish’s work – it’s still on my virtual to-read shelf, where the entries continue to multiply like bunnies -- although I’m glad to have made her acquaintance through this vividly imagined fiction about her and her unconventional artistic life. that A member of the nobility during England’s Civil War, her life was spent in various European cities and settings, where she encountered many illustrious writers, philosophers, and scientists of the time (all men, of course) and often raised contemporaries’ eyebrows and set tongues wagging. Margaret the First is also a reflection on the journey of an artist who was a trail-blazer by virtue of her gender and at times explores her simultaneous defiance of convention, doubt about her own talent and worth, and the burdens of fame.

I loved this to death.

On my list: more Dutton for sure and Cavendish, soon.
...more

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Jan 09, 2016 Tyler Goodson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arcs

In the 17th century, when men were trying to understand how the universe worked, Margaret Cavendish asked herself the same questions: not just of the universe, but of the society in which she found herself, and the many roles she came to play: duchess, writer, thinker, wife, celebrity. If you have never heard of Margaret Cavendish you are lucky, because now you get to know her through Danielle Dutton's words, and her life and story glitter in these pages. As Margaret says, humans are not equippe ...more

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Mar 06, 2017 Jaclyn Crupi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was a complete delight. Margaret Cavendish is definitely the next historical figure Lin-Manuel Miranda should write a musical about. What a fascinating woman! Perfect reading in anticipation of International Women's Day tomorrow. Be sure to read this. ...more

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Sep 13, 2020 Nadine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

What an absolutely lovely little book, inside and out - the cover is gorgeous, the title perfect in its egotistical simplicity. The tone, the writing, the structure, all combine to create not just a picture of Margaret, but the very feel of being with her - maybe even of being her. What a woman of contradictions - shy, egotistical and bursting with frustrated creativity.
Here's a little writing sample that gives a window inside Margaret's head:

But Margaret wanted the whole house to move thre

...more

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Aug 26, 2018 Jess Penhallow rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, popsugar-2018, uk, based-on-a-real-person, france, mental-health, belgium, 17th-century

Historical fiction about real people is tricky. It needs to stick to the facts but to add something either dramatically or stylistically that is different from a non-fiction account.

Unfortunately I don't feel that this book does that. Whilst I found Margaret and her work fascinating, she is too erratic a character to narrate her life story and there were times when I got a bit lost.

I think I would have been better off reading a biography which includes excerpts from her work which I may well d ...more

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Jan 15, 2017 Alice Lippart rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017

An odd and wonderfully written book. The story feels a bit fleeting and ungrounded, but the writing style is magnificent.

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May 29, 2016 Shawn Mooney (Shawn The Book Maniac) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2016, all-the-books-podcast-recommends

What a delightful little historical novel. Size doesn't matter, here: at 160 pages, Margaret The First punches far above its weight.

It's based on the extraordinary, little-known life of Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, a maverick, scientist, and proto-feminist writer in the seventeenth century. You'd probably benefit from reading a brief biographical sketch of Cavendish online before diving in (just not the Wikipedia one, which is bloated and terrible); however, the novel really nar ...more

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Jun 27, 2018 Nate D rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: those seeking biography without the restrictions such suggests

Recommended to Nate D by: 17th century revolutionaries

Shelves: read-in-2018

As a creative interpretation of the life of Margaret Cavendish -- early feminist natural philosopher and sci-fi writer! -- Dutton interprets a clearly broad and detailed research with a spare poetic elegance, creating a precisely arranged experience of the Restoration and Enlightenment, and its heroine's remarkable life. I'd become interested in Dutton's writing after discovering that she's behind the excellent Dorothy, a publishing project, and she's clearly of a part with the pantheon of great ...more

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May 21, 2017 Laura Frey (Reading in Bed) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Well, now I've read two books with anthropomorphic polar bears in 2017. And the year's not half over! ...more

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Jul 14, 2017 T.D. Whittle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, is presented here as a vibrant, fascinating, unique, and lovable woman, which I've no doubt she was. She was also (perhaps unintentionally) hilarious and egocentric to an astounding degree, but no more so than many men of that or any age. Egocentricity always stands out in a woman of past centuries because it's so unexpected. One suspects it would not have been tolerated had she not been of noble birth and marriage. Happily, for us, Margaret was protecte ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Orsolya rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mistresses-royalty, historical-fiction, library-2, stuart-england

William Cavendish is a name/figure familiar to those well-versed on Stuart England and the court of Charles II. Lesser known in modern times but famous during the era was his wife, Margaret Cavendish. Margaret was an author, Duchess, celebrity, and first woman invited to the Royal Society of London. Author Danielle Dutton features ‘Mad Madge’ (as she was dubbed) in, “Margaret the First”.

Dutton may call “Margaret the First” a ‘novel’ but this must be declared as a false statement. “Margaret the F William Cavendish is a name/figure familiar to those well-versed on Stuart England and the court of Charles II. Lesser known in modern times but famous during the era was his wife, Margaret Cavendish. Margaret was an author, Duchess, celebrity, and first woman invited to the Royal Society of London. Author Danielle Dutton features ‘Mad Madge’ (as she was dubbed) in, “Margaret the First”.

Dutton may call “Margaret the First” a ‘novel’ but this must be declared as a false statement. “Margaret the First” can be described as a novella or short story but certainly not a novel as the pages consist of 1-2 page chapter blurbs along with a thin and under-developed plot. The story and characterization both lack growth and depth which makes “Margaret the First” a very quick read but without leaving much of an impact.

Margaret herself also fails to engage the reader in the full sense of the word. Telling her story in a retrospective, almost diary-like way; Dutton abruptly cuts thoughts and merely just mentions events in passing. Yet, this device causes a sort of stream of consciousness flow from Margaret giving the book some essence and spice. Sadly though, the reader doesn’t learn as much about Margaret as anticipated and therefore “Margaret the First” is more of an introduction.

An issue also arises with the setting of “Margaret the First”. Both the environment descriptions and the ‘feel’ are more Victorian than Stuart. This isn’t ‘bad’ per se; it just simple isn’t accurate and doesn’t present the era well.

All complaints aside though; there is something compelling about “Margaret the First” (perhaps the ease of reading) which encourages page turning and provides pleasure. It is definitely a story which could use more flesh on its skeleton but it isn’t terrible. Thin, but not terrible.

In the vein of the Victorian feel, “Margaret the First” causes one to rethink women’s roles which were once (and still are) inhibited. This results in a somewhat philosophical air to Dutton’s writing.

The narrative perspective changes in “Margaret the First” with the section that focuses on the Restoration from first-person to third person, adding depth to the story. The pace at this point steadies versus being over-eager.

The concluding pages of Dutton’s work is slightly off course, choppy, and doesn’t mesh well with the plot but on another hand, this works to emphasize the eccentric nature of Margaret (or at least how she was perceived at the time). The ending is somewhat flat and disappointing not leaving on a powerful note.

Dutton doesn’t dive deep into explaining the historical merits of the story but does provide some sources for further reading/research.

“Margaret the First” is a quick 1-2 day read lacking the depth and development of a novel but introduces Margaret and provides some fodder to chew on. Dutton’s story won’t change your life but is suggested if looking for a fast read with an interest in Stuart England.
...more

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Jan 05, 2016 Holly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: catapult

This is an ultimately successful experiment, if a bit aimless. Danielle Dutton fictionalizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, or, as the protagonist muses that she would one day like to be known as: Margaret the First. The prose is tucked inside a bland-looking nest, but it really holds the most beautiful eggs imaginable. Dutton explores how Margaret maneuvered through a society where "intellectualism" was dominated by males. It's quite funny at times: with the benefit of living in 2016, we watch ...more

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Jul 25, 2017 Jenni rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Jenni by: Olive Fellows (abookolive)

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

This books is so lovely. Beautiful and entertaining and full of wonderful quote worthy passages! I'm definitely going to be rereading this one at some point. ...more

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Sep 17, 2020 Resh (The Book Satchel) rated it liked it · review of another edition

I had expected to love the book after hearing raving reviews. But I feel I didn't know enough of the history to enjoy the book enough. Also I would've liked more depth (of characters and settings) which again might be because I didn't know enough of the history being covered in the book. ...more

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Jan 07, 2017 Anna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, feminism

I first came across Margaret Cavendish when one of my best friends wrote their undergraduate dissertation about her. She is sometimes considered the mother of science fiction, thanks to her 1666 book The Blazing World. In this, a girl survives a shipwreck and finds herself in a strange and fanciful other world of talking animals. Cavendish is a fascinating and unusual figure: an eccentric intellectual woman in an era when that was vanishingly rare. I was thus delighted to come across a review of ...more

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Jan 26, 2021 Kin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: american, historical

I liked the first and the last chapter of this book.
I suspect the book was aiming to echo the whimsy and messiness of Margaret's writing in its structure and language.
In my opinion it got caught between the whimsy and the facts - it committed to neither, but it also couldn't let go of either. The first half felt like reading a wikipedia page padded up with melancholic vignettes. In essence we learn that Margaret moved from this place to that place, some people died inbetween, some historical e ...more

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About Danielle Dutton

Danielle Dutton

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Danielle Dutton's fiction has appeared in magazines such as Harper's, BOMB, The Paris Review, The White Review, Conjunctions, Guernica, and NOON. She is the author of Attempts at a Life, which Daniel Handler in Entertainment Weekly called "indescribably beautiful"; SPRAWL, a finalist for the Believer Book Award in 2011, reprinted by Wave Books with an Afterword by Renee Gladman in 2018; Here Comes ...more

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Quotes from Margaret the First

“Yet why must grammar be like a prison for the mind? Might not language be as a closet full of gowns? Of a generally similar cut, with a hole for the head and neck to pass, but filled with difference and a variety of trimmings so that we don't grow bored?” — 14 likes

“It was indescribable what she wanted. She was restless. She wanted to work. She wanted to be thirty people. She wanted to wear a cap of pearls and a coat of bright blue diamonds. To live as nature does, in many ages, in many brains” — 11 likes

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Preview — Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

Margaret the First

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About Danielle Dutton

Books by Danielle Dutton

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Trivia About Margaret the First

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