The following version of the poem was used to create this guide: Cavendish, Margaret. “A World Made by Atoms.” In Margaret Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies: A Digital Critical Edition. Ed. Liza Blake. Website published May 2019.

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken.

Lady Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-on-Tyne, was born to a genteel family in 1623. She had no formal education, but showed early genius as a writer, which was not encouraged due to her sex. As a young woman, she was a member of the court of Queen Henrietta Maria, and traveled with her to exile in France when her husband Charles I was executed during the English Civil War. She was known as exceptionally shy or even silly, likely due to anxiety. While abroad, she married William Cavendish, then a marquis (he later advanced to the Dukedom of Newcastle-on-Tyne). It was a love match and, though the couple's attempts to have children were never successful, William was highly supportive of his wife's literary ambitions and defended her from accusations that he was the true author of her work. She wrote biographies of both herself and her husband, as well as several plays, multiple volumes of poetry and short prose, and The Blazing World, which some have called the first example of science fiction ever published. Cavendish died in 1674.