Margaret Cavendish, Orator

 This paper argues that Cavendish, one of the most prolific authors of the seventeenth century, understood herself chiefly as a counselor, that her statements of aristocratic prominence and right were less vainglorious than polemical, and that her *Orations* (1662/1668) are best understood as a form of advice for princes – and an advertisement for Cavendish herself.
Julie Crawford, Columbia University