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.
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