Aphra. or Afra, Aphara, Ayfara, Behn (1640-89)

Whether Mrs. Behn was born at Canterbury or Wye is not certain. Nor is it certain whether her maiden name was Johnson or Amis. It is now also contested whether she ever went out to Surinam, of which, we are told by her earliest biographer, her father was appointed Governor-General. But upon investigation it has been discovered that there is no evidence of anyone of either the name of Johnson or Amis being so appointed. It is believed, on good authority, that Mrs. Behn collected the ‘facts’ and the local colour, which is inaccurate in some points, for her novel Oroonoko from books and acquaintances in London. In 1664 she married a merchant of Dutch extraction who died two years afterwards, presumably in the Plague. She was sent in 1666 by Charles II (with whom we are told she was a favourite) as secret agent to the Netherlands during the Dutch war, but her report of De Witt's intention to sail up the Thames was laughed to scorn. On her return to England, she was imprisoned for debt, the king refusing to pay even the expenses she had incurred in his service. She was released after a short confinement and began writing plays for a living, her first play, The Forc'd Marriage, being performed in 1670. She became thereafter very successful as a writer of witty comedy, of which The Rover (1677) is a good example. Her contribution to the popular vilification of the Puritans is represented in The Roundheads (1682), and before her death she herself became the centre of much scandal, and it is only quite recently that critics have dealt with her at all fairly. She was the first woman to earn her living by the pen.

 

Her bibliography is as follows:

Plays: The Forc'd Marriage, 1670. The Amorous Prince, 1671. The Dutch Lover, 1673. Abdelazar, 1677. The Rover, 1677. The Debauchee, 1677. The Town Fop, 1677. Sir Patient Fancy, 1678. The Rover, Part II, 1681. The Roundheads, 1682. The City Heiress, 1682. The False Count, 1682. The Young King, 1683. The Lucky Chance, 1687. The Emperor of the Moon, 1687. Collected Plays, 1702. Novels and pamphlets: The Adventures of the Black Lady, 1684. La Montre, or the Lover's Watch, 1686. Lycidas, 1688. The Lucky Mistake, 1689. Novels and Histories (including) Oroonoko, The Fair Jilt, The Nun, Agnes de Castro, and The Court of King Bantam, 1698. Poetical Remains, ed. by Gildon, 1689.

Criticism: Hunt, Goss, V. Sackville-West, Jerrold. See also the chapter on Mrs Behn and her type of novel in Dr. Ernest Baker's History of the English Novel, vol. iii.