<DIV><b>'The whole story of this Lady is a romance, and all she doth is romantic' ?Pepys</b> <p> Flamboyant, theatrical, exuding ambiguous sexuality, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was one of the seventeeth century's most striking figures, experimental in her personality as much as in her prolific writings. <p> Both 'The Contract' and 'Assaulted and Pursued Chastity' (from <b>Nature's Pictures</b>, 1656) are romances which play out the empowering possibilities of disguise or masking for women. The centrepiece of this collection is 'The Blazing World', the only known Utopian fiction by a seventeenth century woman writer, an inventive and extravagant portrayal of the rise of a woman to absolute power. </div>