The female reader at work in scientific fictions

Abstract

In 1666, Margaret Cavendish published two editions of the same fictional text, The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World, respectively addressed to a male and female readership. The edition addressed to female readers contains only the fiction and not the preceding philosophical treatise. This article examines how the pedagogical and heuristic functions are articulated in The Blazing World, in the precise context of a female address. Using a comparison with Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes, which is explicitly (and not exclusively) addressed to women, we will explore how the female reader is involved in the epistemic process.