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Critical Reception
Because of her being a woman author at the time, the fact that she was willing to converse with men on natural philosophy, and her theatrical sense of dress, she eventually gained the nickname "Mad Marge", and many of her contemporaries lambasted her works for their perceived eccentricity. For example, fellow scientist and Royal Society member Samuel Pepys, once famously wrote that she was "a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman" after reading one of her biographies. Dorothy Osborne reflected in one of her published letters, after reading one of the Duchess' books, that she was "sure there are soberer people in Bedlam." This was typical of the impression the general public seemed to have of her. She had her admirers, however: Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmorland, wrote a poem in her honor on the flyleaf of his copy of Poems and Fancies; John Dryden congratulated Newcastle on his wife's "masculine style"; Sir Kenelm Digby and Henry More, to both of whom she gave copies of her work, professed to value it; and Joseph Glanvill and Walter Charleton respected her enough to offer her serious criticism and advice. Not only that, but Charles Lamb enjoyed her Sociable Letters  and so much admired her biography of her husband, the Duke, that he referred to it as a jewel "for which no casket is rich enough."

As for her scientific pursuits, she was widely looked down upon by the Royal Society, who had a history of excluding women from their ranks; Margaret Cavendish was the first female to be invited, and it wasn't until 1945 that they inducted their first female member. One member, John Evelyn, considered her "a mighty pretender to learning, poetry, and philosophy." A second member, Robert Boyle, considered many of the experiments shown to Cavendish by the Royal Society to be trifles, disparaged her tendency to measure things by their "strangeness" and "prettiness," as opposed to their "use." Even so, her knowledge was still recognized by some, such as proto-feminist Bathsua Makin, who wrote that "The present Dutchess of New-Castle, by her own Genius, rather than any timely Instruction, over-tops many grave Grown-Men," and considered her a prime example of what women could become through education.

For a long time after her death, her eccentricity prevented her from being taken seriously by literary historians; it wasn't until Virginia Woolf wrote The Common Reader in 1925 that discourse rediscovered the Duchess of Newcastle. On the subject of Cavendish's works, Woolf said that "though her philosophies are futile, and her plays intolerable, and her verses mainly dull, the vast bulk of the Duchess is leavened by a vein of authentic fire. One cannot help following the lure of her erratic and lovable personality as it meanders and twinkles through page after page. There is something noble and Quixotic and high-spirited, as well as crack-brained and bird-witted, about her. Her simplicity is so open; her intelligence so active; her sympathy with fairies and animals so true and tender. She has the freakishness of an elf, the irresponsibility of some non-human creature, its heartlessness, and its charm."

After centuries of disinterest due to her eccentricity, in the 1980's, Margaret Cavendish experience an explosion of popularity as she was rediscovered and analyzed from a modern feminist perspective; in that time, there have been 8 biographies, which can be found here. There have been many attempts to justify her eccentricity with a historic lens. She has also gained fame as one of the first female science fiction writers, namely for her early utopian novel The Blazing World. Her self insert character, named Margaret Cavendish, in The Blazing World is said to be one of the earliest examples of the modern of the Mary Sue trope. More recently, her plays have also been examined by the lens of Performance Studies, as they blur the lines between performance and literature, challenge gender identities, and upset gender norms. Additional analysis on Margaret Cavendish can be found here.