4 h 35 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 35 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Beyond the ice, a woman taken against her will enters a world where she can rule—and question everything.
A merchant carries a young woman away by sea. A storm drives their boat toward the North Pole, where another world touches ours. In Margaret Cavendish’s The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World, creatures with animal bodies guide the stranger to an emperor. He welcomes her, marries her, and shares his power.
As empress, the Lady wants to understand nature. She questions the Animal-Men, scholars whose different fields lead them into argument. Their debates turn this strange journey into a searching conversation about knowledge, instruments, and authority. Published in 1666, this short prose fantasy gives a woman room to ask questions and challenge the answers.
What you’ll discover
- A passage through ice Follow the Lady beyond the North Pole into a world joined to our own.
- A woman with power Meet an empress whose desire to understand nature shapes her life as a ruler.
- Scholars in animal shapes Discover creatures who act like people and disagree over the workings of nature.
- Science under sharp questioning Explore the empress’s distrust of lenses and instruments as guides to the truth.
- Imagination given room See how Cavendish lets ideas about nature and power walk about inside a story.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy imaginative voyages, lively talks between a curious ruler and her odd advisers, early science fiction, and women's writing from the seventeenth century.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stolen lady crosses between worlds
- Welcome leads to absolute power
- Unity holds the realm together
- Instruments cannot settle every argument
- Nature moves through its own power
- Even spirits have limits to knowledge
- Imagination offers a different sovereignty
- Romance gives philosophy many rooms
- Reason and imagination belong together
Who’s who
- The Lady, later the EmpressA young woman stolen from the shore who crosses to another world, becomes its ruler and questions everyone about nature, faith and power.
- The EmperorThe ruler of the Blazing-World who takes the stranger for a goddess, marries her and grants her absolute power over his realm.
- The Duchess of NewcastleThe author as a character, a plain writer of sense and reason who becomes the Empress's scribe, friend and adviser, and who dreams of ruling a world.
- The Duke of NewcastleThe Duchess's husband, a skilled horseman and swordsman who has lost much of his fortune and who wins the Empress's admiration.
- The Bear-menThe Empress's experimental philosophers, who love their telescopes and microscopes and cherish their quarrels more than the truth.
- The Worm-menThoughtful natural philosophers who live under the earth and argue that nature is one body in endless motion.
- The Immaterial SpiritsAiry visitors who tell the Empress what they know of her old world and of God, and who admit what they cannot know.
- FortuneA moody goddess who is the Duke's enemy and who agrees, with her friends Folly and Rashness, to hear his case.
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The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World
by Margaret Cavendish · 1666
A stolen lady drifts to the North Pole and steps into a second world where she becomes its Empress.
Challenging2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you do if a storm carried you past the edge of the known world? A merchant steals a young lady, but his boat is driven north until every man aboard freezes, and she alone drifts across the Pole into a second world.
The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 35 min2 h 5 min fast, 3 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 37,200 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1666by Margaret Cavendish
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A stolen lady sails into another world
The story opens with a crime. A merchant loves a young lady far above his rank, and since he cannot win her, he decides to steal her. She gathers shells on the shore with a few servants, so he arrives in a light boat and carries her off.
At once heaven seems to frown on the theft. A storm flings the boat toward the North Pole, between huge cliffs of ice. The cold is worse than the sailors can bear. One by one the men freeze to death, and only the lady survives, kept alive by her youth and the protection of the gods.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1666
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 55 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Cavendish, Margaret. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world.
Cavendish, M. (2026). The description of a new world, called the Blazing-World. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world (Original work published 1666)
Cavendish, Margaret. The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world.
@book{cavendish2026description,
author = {Cavendish, Margaret},
title = {The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-description-of-a-new-world-called-the-blazing-world},
note = {First published 1666}
}
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What is The Blazing-World about?
A young woman is carried by a storm over the North Pole into another world, where she becomes Empress. She questions her animal-men advisers about science and religion, befriends the author as a character, and then helps her homeland.
Who is the Duchess of Newcastle in the story?
She is Margaret Cavendish herself. She enters the tale as a soul summoned to be the Empress's scribe, becomes her close friend and adviser, and shares her dreams of creating worlds in the mind.
Is The Blazing-World science fiction?
It is often called one of the earliest works of science fiction, though the author called it a romance. It was published in 1666 and mixes a voyage to another world, strange inventions and debates about nature.
The author
Margaret Cavendish
1617–1673 · English writer and natural philosopher
English aristocrat, prolific writer, and scientist.
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