This thesis tests whether the theory that estrangement allows reconceptions of gender politics holds in the liminal and secondary worlds of Margaret Cavendish, a writer deeply, if ambivalently, committed to Fancy. Her work is often subversive, but withdraws when the social order is threatened. In order to assess whether Cavendish's gender politics change in her secondary worlds, her primary-world work must first be examined. Here, Cavendish is contradictory on female nature, education, public authority, speech, cross-dressing, and marriage, reflecting her multiple and divided concept of subjectivity. She always remains committed to female chastity and obedience, however, and to social order. Relationships between women are also consistently problematic in her primary-world work. This does not completely change in her liminal worlds. The feminocentric imaginative worlds or new societies of 'The Convent of Pleasure, Lady Contemplation', and 'The Female Academy', all become unstable, only surviving if they carefully negotiate with the primary world. In 'Blazing World', the Empress reforms its misogynist religion and government, but change threatens this utopia's stability, and the Empress apparently withdraws her reforms. The 'Blazing World' finally becomes an ambivalent text on female rule and nature, despite the discursive and educational spaces created for women and the celebration of female friendship. In contrast, the more stable world of "Assaulted and Pursued Chastity" does not fundamentally attempt to challenge gender politics, although the text radically realigns gender and genre, destabilizes sex and gender (if only in terms of the protagonist), and women finally become good rulers. If subversiveness is kept within careful bounds, recuperation becomes unnecessary. Aemelia Lanyer, Rachel Speght, and Anne Bradstreet also experiment with the opportunities available for women in fantasy, but the primary world often destroys these liminal and secondary worlds, showing a feminine vulnerability to Fortune. In contrast, the pragmatic Aphra Behn dismisses secondary worlds. Reflecting the ephemerality of feminine fancy, Cavendish's secondary and liminal worlds only occasionally depart from the contradictions inherent in her gender politics in the primary world.

Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was born in 1623 in Colchester, Essex into a family of comfortable means. As the youngest of eight children she spent much time with her siblings. Margaret had no formal education but she did have access to scholarly libraries and tutors, although she later said the children paid little attention to the tutors, who were there 'rather for formality than benefit'. From an early age Margaret was already assembling her thoughts for future works despite the then conditions of society that women did not partake in public authorship. For England it was also a time of Civil War. The Royalists were being pushed back and Parliamentary forces were in the ascendancy. Despite these obvious dangers, when Queen Henrietta Maria was in Oxford, Margaret asked her mother for permission to become one of her Ladies-in-waiting. She was accepted and, in 1644, accompanied the Queen into exile in France. This took her away from her family for the first time. Despite living at the Court of the young King Louis XIV, life for the young Margaret was not what she expected. She was far from her home and her confidence had been replaced by shyness and difficulties fitting in to the grandeur of her surroundings and the eminence of her company. Margaret told her mother she wanted to leave the Court. Her mother was adamant that she should stay and not disgrace herself by leaving. She provided additional funds for her to make life easier. Margaret remained. It was now also that she met and married William Cavendish who, at the time, was the Marquis of Newcastle (and later Duke). He was also 30 years her senior and previously married with two children. As Royalists, a return to life in England was not yet possible. They would remain in exile in Paris, Rotterdam and Antwerp until the restoration of the crown in 1660 although Margaret was able to return for attention to some estate matters. Along with her husband's brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, she travelled to England after having been told that her husband's estate (taken from him due to his being a royalist) was to be sold and that she, as his wife, would receive some benefit of the sale. She received nothing. She left England to be with her husband again. The couple were devoted to each other. Margaret wrote that he was the only man she was ever in love with, loving him not for title, wealth or power, but for merit, justice, gratitude, duty, and fidelity. She also relied upon him for support in her career. The marriage provided no children despite efforts made by her physician to overcome her inability to conceive. Margaret's first book, 'Poems and Fancies', was published in 1653; it was a collection of poems, epistles and prose pieces which explores her philosophical, scientific and aesthetic ideas. For a woman at this time writing and publishing were avenues they had great difficulty in pursuing. Added to this was Margaret's range of subjects. She wrote across a number of issues including gender, power, manners, scientific method, and philosophy. She always claimed she had too much time on her hands and was therefore able to indulge her love of writing. As a playwright she produced many works although most are as closet dramas. (This is a play not intended to be performed onstage, but instead read by a solitary reader or perhaps out loud in a small group. For Margaret the rigours of exile, her gender and Cromwell's closing of the theatres mean this was her early vehicle of choice and, despite these handicaps, she became one of the most well-known playwrights in England) Her utopian romance, 'The Blazing World', (1666) is one of the earliest examples of science fiction. Margaret also published extensively in natural philosophy and early modern science; at least a dozen books. She was the first woman to attend a meeting at Royal Society of London in 1667 and she critic

The Blazing World, is a 1666 work of prose fiction by the English writer Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. Feminist critic Dale Spender calls it a forerunner ofScience Fiction-General. It can also be read as a utopian work

The rights and responsibilities of health citizenship are increasingly at the forefront of public policy debates concerning disease prevention and health management. These debates have global implications for prosperity, equality, and stability in dramatically changing demographic, economic, political and ecological environments. This collection represents a selection of critical essays produced by one of the most eminent historians of public health and social medicine over the previous two decades. Anyone settng out to understand the history of public health, the rise of the modern state, the role of the social sciences in population health promotion, and the changing social contract of health citizenship in industrial and post-industrial societies will find this volume essential.

What induced the British to adopt foreign coffee-drinking customs in the seventeenth century? Why did an entirely new social institution, the coffeehouse, emerge as the primary place for consumption of this new drink? In this lively book, Brian Cowan locates the answers to these questions in the particularly British combination of curiosity, commerce, and civil society. Cowan provides the definitive account of the origins of coffee drinking and coffeehouse society, and in so doing he reshapes our understanding of the commercial and consumer revolutions in Britain during the long Stuart century. Britain’s virtuosi, gentlemanly patrons of the arts and sciences, were profoundly interested in things strange and exotic. Cowan explores how such virtuosi spurred initial consumer interest in coffee and invented the social template for the first coffeehouses. As the coffeehouse evolved, rising to take a central role in British commercial and civil society, the virtuosi were also transformed by their own invention.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An excellent text for clients to read before meeting with attorneys so they'll understand the fundamentals of patent, copyright, trade secret, trademark, mask work, and unfair competition laws. This is not a "do-it-yourself" manual but rather a ready reference tool for inventors or creators that will generate maximum efficiencies in obtaining, preserving and enforcing their intellectual property rights. It explains why they need to secure the services of IPR attorneys. Coverage includes employment contracts, including the ability of engineers to take confidential and secret knowledge to a new job, shop rights and information to help an entrepreneur establish a non-conflicting enterprise when leaving their prior employment. Sample forms of contracts, contract clauses, and points to consider before signing employment agreements are included. Coverage of copyright, software protection, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) as well as the procedural variances in international intellectual property laws and procedures.