In this charming and witty dialogue translated by the first professional woman writer in English, a 17th century astronomer staying at the chateau of a beautiful Marchioness accompanies her into her garden at night and introduces her to the new discoveries of astronomy Although more than 300 years old, Fontenelle's dialogues in a garden over five nights are still a surprisingly painless way to learn about the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars, even though new planets were later discovered and modern science has filled out many details Fontenelle could not have known. Only the confidence with which he discusses inhabitants of the planets, the moon, and even the sun is now seen as misplaced. This is no lecture, but a conversation with the cut and thrust of intelligent argument as the Marchioness challenges each of the astronomer's assertions and requires him to explain the evidence. Fontenelle's work has been through the hands of many different translators, but Aphra Behn's translation, one of the earliest, adds the feminine wit of a leading dramatist to the work, in the first modern edition of this translation.

In this charming and witty dialogue translated by the first professional woman writer in English, a 17th century astronomer staying at the chateau of a beautiful Marchioness accompanies her into her garden at night and introduces her to the new discoveries of astronomy Although more than 300 years old, Fontenelle's dialogues in a garden over five nights are still a surprisingly painless way to learn about the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars, even though new planets were later discovered and modern science has filled out many details Fontenelle could not have known. Only the confidence with which he discusses inhabitants of the planets, the moon, and even the sun is now seen as misplaced. This is no lecture, but a conversation with the cut and thrust of intelligent argument as the Marchioness challenges each of the astronomer's assertions and requires him to explain the evidence. Fontenelle's work has been through the hands of many different translators, but Aphra Behn's translation, one of the earliest, adds the feminine wit of a leading dramatist to the work, in the first modern edition of this translation.

Writing New Worlds analyses the different ways in which travel literature constituted a fundamental pillar in the production of knowledge in the modern era. The impressive frequency of publication and the widespread circulation of translations and editions account for the leading and essential contribution of travel literature for a better understanding and awareness about the dynamics and practices associated with decoding and making sense of the prose of the world. These texts, in some cases accompanied by illustrations, covered a broad and extensive panoply of languages, grammars and ways of seeing, translating and writing new worlds. In drawing special attention to internationally less-studied sources from Portugal and Germany, the book shows how authors, scholars and artists between the 15th and 17th centuries responded to the challenges of modernity, and explores the cultural dynamics involved in grasping and understanding the New.

This remarkable anthology assembles for the first time 144 primary texts and documents written by women between 1550 and 1700 and reveals an unprecedented view of the intellectual and literary lives of women in early modern England

These essays throw new light on the complex relations between science, literature and rhetoric as avenues to discovery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds examine the agency of early modern poets, playwrights, essayists, philosophers, natural philosophers and artists in remaking their culture and reforming ideas about human understanding. Analyzing the ways in which the works of such diverse writers as Shakespeare, Bacon, Hobbes, Milton, Cavendish, Boyle, Pope and Behn related to contemporary epistemological debates, these essays move us toward a better understanding of interactions between the sciences and the humanities during a seminal phase in the emergence of modern Western thought.

First published in 1666, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle’s Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World is the first fictional portrayal of women and the new science. In Blazing World, Cavendish depicts her heroine, the Empress, in multiple roles. The Empress is leader of a dreamlike utopian world reachable through the North Pole, filled with talking animals and intelligent hybrid creatures. She establishes a royal society of scientists, initiates learned conferences, interrogates existing knowledge, and spends her days speculating on natural philosophy. She also forms a lively intellectual collaboration with the “Duchess of Newcastle,” a female character summoned from Earth. A companion volume to Cavendish’s important Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, Blazing World is the first science-fiction novel known to have been written and published by a woman, and represents a pioneering female scientific utopia. This Broadview Edition includes related historical materials on the new science and Cavendish’s role in the intellectual world of her time.