In a male-dominated society in which most women were illiterate, Aphra Behn (1640-1689) became known as the first woman in England to make a living from her writing. In 1664, she married a wealthy merchant of Dutch descent who was considerably older than her. This was probably against her will, judging by her hostile attitude to marriage and the mockery to which merchants are subjected in her works.
 

Her bohemian lifestyle, her radical ideas, which were ahead of their time, and the boldness of her writing have led her to be dubbed the “George Sand of the Restoration”. Through her plays, she talks without reserve about free love, female sexuality, and women’s right of determination over their lives and bodies.
 

In 1666, she entered the service of King Charles II, serving as a spy in Antwerp during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and adopting the pseudonym ‘Astrea’. This was also the name under which she later published many of her poems. She returned to England beleaguered and penniless, was imprisoned for debt, and from 1670, once she was free, devoted herself to writing. Her first work for the stage, The forc’d marriage, was performed in 1670, and was followed by another 14 plays. In 1684, she published a collection of her verse entitled Poems upon several occasions with a voyage to the Island of Love, and in 1688, three volumes of prose.
 

Her plays were highly successful, but her novels were also of great literary value, most notably Oroonoko: or The royal slave, which concerns the themes of forced servitude and hypocrisy and had a great influence on later literature. Proud and independent to the end, she chose to be buried without any mention of her husband or father on her gravestone.

 

A short list of her plays:
The rover, A comedy about banished cavaliers, The feign’d curtizans or A night’s intrigue, The young king, The city heiress, The emperor of the moon.

 

Women of Quality have so few opportunities for Love, that we ought to lose none. (The rover)