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Go to spectator. book club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary edge of the

spectator and I'm very pleased to have as my guest this week, Francesca Peacock, a frequent reviewer for us

and the author of her first book, Pure Witt, The Revolutionary Life of Margaret

Cavendish. Margaret Cavendish is a 17th century writer who is, well, she's been described as

mad madge of Newcastle and by no less than Virginia Woolf as being crack-brained and bird-witted.

But Francesca has a different view on her. Francesca, welcome.

Tell us about this extraordinary Duchess of Newcastle. Yeah, so excited to talk about her.

So yes, what most people have heard of her is normally the Virginia Woolf line, crack, brained, birdwitted.

Also, Exotic is an elf is another one of the lines, and a giant cucumber and a bogey to frighten

clever girls with, which is my absolute favourite line. And I have to say, she didn't actually

scare me off, but very nearly. So she is the first Duchess of Newcastle. So she is absolutely

amazing women. She's one of England's first feminist authors, scientists, natural philosophers,

and one of the first women to really, you know, Virginia Woolf says it's Afra Ben, who first makes a living by her pen. There is a

claim to be made that it's Margaret Cavander. She's a very, very early, incredibly important

finger who's kind of been largely written out of history because everyone did attack her as

mad, both in her own lifetime and for centuries afterwards.

So the biography just before mine was called Mad Match in 2003.

Well, as we'll see, she's given those people some encouragement in the course of her career

to set out how. But to start with your subtitle, you call her someone who's had a revolutionary life.

...