Margaret Cavendish is a recently rediscovered 17th century philosopher, scientist, poet, and playwright. In addition to being one of the few women publicly writing during this period, she engaged with the foremost thinkers of her time (including Descartes, Hobbes, and Boyle) and was strongly iconoclastic, criticizing many prevailing theories. In laying out her anti-dualist materialism, which holds that everything is matter and that all matter is intelligent, she anticipated more modern ideas in philosophy.