History of the Book Group seminar: ‘Margaret Cavendish and Her Books in Merton College: Oxford and Feminist Book Histories’

Speaker: Liza Blake (University of Toronto, currently Sassoon Visiting Fellow in Special Collections, Bodleian Library)

This talk will explore the complicated history of the printed books donated to the Merton College by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, a seventeenth-century poet, philosopher, playwright who deposited her books in every college in Oxford and Cambridge.  Margaret’s relationship with her own books allows us to glimpse a possible feminist rewrite of book history.

The talk will be followed by a guided exploration of Merton's Cavendish books.

Refreshments also provided.