MARGARET THE FIRST
Catapult, 2016
“The duchess herself would be delighted at her resurrection in Margaret the First…Dutton surprisingly and delightfully offers not just a remarkable duchess but also an intriguing dissection of an unusually bountiful partnership of (almost) equals.”
— Katharine Grant, New York Times Book Review
A Boston Globe “Pick of the Week”
An “Indie Next” Pick for March 2016
A Vanity Fair “Hot Type” Pick for March 2016
A BBC Pick for one of “9 Books to Read in March”
A Publishers Weekly “Pick of the Week” for 3/14/16
One of The Millions’ “Most Anticipated Books of 2016″
One of Flavorwire’s “50 Most Anticipated Books of 2016”
and “10 Must-Read Books for March”
LitHub’s “23 Books to Be Excited For in March”
and “5 Books Making the News this Week”
An Entropy “Best Fiction Books of 2016″
MARGARET THE FIRST is based on seventeenth-century writer and polymath Margaret Cavendish, one of the first women to be published and a notoriously audacious and polarizing figure in her day.
As one of the Queen’s attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, Margaret was exiled at the overthrow of King Charles I in 1642. As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret spent the interregnum period in France and Belgium, marrying William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In sharp, stylized prose Dutton opens the private sphere of this odd and fascinating woman, her drive to write, and the singular marriage that enabled her success. Returning to England ten years later as a celebrated author, Cavendish was the first woman ever invited to the Royal Society of London, and the last for another 200 years.
Danielle Dutton’s previous works include the story collection ATTEMPTS AT A LIFE and an experimental novel, SPRAWL, a finalist for the Believer Book Award in 2011. Dutton is active in many parts of the literary community, notably as the founder of the publishing house Dorothy, which—for its impressive list and as well as innovative book design—has attracted the attention of The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, Elle, Poets & Writers, Kirkus, and BOMB. She teaches fiction on the permanent faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, alongside Kathryn Davis, Carl Phillips, and Mary Jo Bang.