All Thinkers

Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn was an English writer. She is the first woman known to have earned her living by writing in English. Almost every fact about her early life is uncertain. She was born around 1640, probably in Kent in the south of England. Her family was not rich. Her father may have been a barber called Johnson. As a young woman, she travelled to Surinam, a small English colony in South America (it later became Dutch). There she seems to have met people whose stories she used later in her writing. By 1664 she was back in England. She married a man called Behn, possibly a German or Dutch merchant. He died or left her within a few years. She then used the name Mrs Behn for the rest of her life. In the 1660s, King Charles II sent her to Antwerp in the Netherlands as a spy. Her job was to get information about English enemies. She sent messages back to London using the code name 'Astrea'. The king did not pay her enough. She ended up in debt. She may have spent time in a debtors' prison in London. From about 1670 she began writing plays. They were witty, often funny, and sometimes about sex. She wrote about 19 plays in total. Her most famous play is The Rover (1677). She also wrote poems, novels, and translations. Her novel Oroonoko (1688) is one of the first novels in English. It tells the story of an African prince sold into slavery. She died on 16 April 1689, aged about 48 or 49. She is buried at Westminster Abbey, a rare honour for a writer. Virginia Woolf later said that every woman who writes owes something to Aphra Behn.

Origin
England
Lifespan
c. 1640-1689
Era
17th Century
Subjects
Literature Drama Early Novel Women's Writing Colonial History
Skills
Creative Expression Critical Thinking Cultural Heritage And Identity Ethical Thinking Emotional Intelligence
Why They Matter

Behn matters for three reasons. First, she was the first woman in English to earn her living by writing. Before her, a few rich women wrote books, but they did not need the money. They wrote as a hobby. Behn wrote to pay her rent. She treated writing as a job, not a pastime. This was new. It opened a door. Over the next two hundred years, more and more women walked through it. Virginia Woolf, writing in 1929, said that every woman who writes should put flowers on Behn's grave. Without her, Woolf thought, the women writers who came later would have found the road harder.

Second, her novel Oroonoko is one of the first English novels. It tells the story of an African prince who is tricked into slavery and taken to a colony in South America. The novel shows slavery as cruel and unjust. It makes the African hero noble, intelligent, and brave. This was unusual in 1688. Most European writers did not question slavery at all.

Behn's position was complicated

She did not fully reject slavery as a system. But she treated the enslaved hero as a full human being. For the time, this was important. Later abolitionists drew on her book when making their case against slavery in the 18th century.

Third, she wrote about things women were not supposed to write about.

Desire

Female pleasure.

Disappointment in love

Same-sex attraction. She did this with wit, not shame. She was attacked for it, especially by male critics who said women should not write such things.

She kept writing anyway

Many later women writers, from Jane Austen to modern novelists, owe something to her refusal to be silenced. She showed that a woman could write on any subject she chose.

Key Ideas
1
The First Professional Woman Writer
2
Oroonoko: The Story
3
A Spy for the King
Key Quotations
"All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn... for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."
— Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, 1929
This is not Behn's own quote. It is Virginia Woolf writing about her. Woolf is giving Behn the credit for an important achievement. Behn was the first woman in England to earn her living by writing. Once that door was open, other women could walk through it. Woolf, writing 240 years after Behn's death, wanted modern women writers to remember this. For students, the line is a useful reminder. The freedoms we have today were built by particular people in specific times. They did not appear by magic. Naming the people who broke the first barriers is a way of honouring them and understanding where we are now.
"I value fame as much as if I had been born a Hero."
— Preface to The Lucky Chance, 1686
Behn is defending her right, as a woman, to want public recognition for her work. In her time, men were expected to want fame. Women were expected to be modest and stay out of the public eye. Behn rejects this. She says she cares about fame just as much as a man would. Why should she not? For students, the line is a small act of courage. Many women still feel pressure to pretend they do not want recognition. Behn's answer is direct and unapologetic. If I wrote it, she is saying, I should be allowed to want people to know it.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Cultural Heritage and Identity When introducing students to women's history in English literature
How to introduce
Most students have heard of Shakespeare (1564-1616). Far fewer have heard of Aphra Behn, who lived just two generations later. Yet she was the first woman in England to earn her living by writing. Ask students: why do we know one and not the other? Shakespeare was a man, and his plays were kept in print for centuries. Behn was a woman, and her works were allowed to fade. Reading her is one small way of filling in a real gap in the usual story of English literature.
Creative Expression When discussing writing as paid work
How to introduce
Share the fact that Behn wrote to pay her rent. She did not write as a hobby. Ask students: does knowing this change how we read her work? Some readers think great writing must be 'pure' and separate from money. Others think serious writing has always been done for a living. Both views have been held. Looking at Behn makes the question real. She produced plays, novels, and poems that lasted, while also trying to pay bills. The two things are not in conflict.
Further Reading

For a first introduction, Oroonoko is short (about 80 pages in most editions) and readable. The Penguin Classics edition includes helpful notes. The Rover, her most famous play, is often performed and available in many editions. For a short biographical introduction, the Great Writers Inspire website has useful free pages on Behn. Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own includes the famous passage about her.

Key Ideas
1
Writing About Desire
2
The Rover
3
The Narrator of Oroonoko
Key Quotations
"Had I been born a man, or left to write as one, I might have dared."
— Paraphrased from Behn's prefaces and dedications, widely attributed
In her prefaces, Behn often complained that male critics judged her more harshly because she was a woman. A man could write exactly what she wrote and be praised. A woman writing the same words was called coarse or improper. She points this out many times across her career. The rule was not really about the writing. It was about who was doing the writing. For intermediate students, the observation is still sometimes relevant. Work by women, or by anyone outside the usual group, is often held to different standards. Noticing this is the first step to pushing against it. Behn was doing this over 300 years ago.
"He was adorn'd with a native beauty so transcending all those of his gloomy race, that he struck an awe and reverence, even into those that knew not his quality."
— Oroonoko, 1688, description of the hero
Behn is describing Oroonoko, the African prince. She wants her English readers to see him as noble and striking. But notice the word 'gloomy race'. Behn treats Oroonoko as special partly because he stands out from his people, whom she describes with the racial assumptions of her time. The passage shows both what she was doing well and where her limits were. She made her hero fully human to her readers. She also carried with her the racial hierarchy that most 17th-century English writers took for granted. For intermediate students, this is an important moment. Reading carefully means seeing both the achievement and the limits. One description can be a step forward and still carry problems.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Ethical Thinking When teaching students to hold more than one truth at once about a text
How to introduce
Oroonoko is both an important early critique of slavery AND a book that accepts many racial ideas of its time. Give students the description of Oroonoko as noble 'compared to his gloomy race' and ask them to react. Discuss: how do we read a text that both pushes a cause forward and carries problems? The answer is usually not to reject the text or accept it fully, but to read it carefully, naming the good and the harmful together. This is a mature reading skill.
Critical Thinking When teaching students about narrators in fiction
How to introduce
The narrator of Oroonoko claims to be Aphra Behn herself. Most early readers believed this. Modern scholars are more careful. They read the narrator as a character that Behn created, partly based on her own life. Ask students: what is the difference between an author and a narrator? Even when a narrator says 'I', she is not always the same person as the writer. This is a basic but important skill. It helps students read fiction (and also modern online writing) more carefully.
Ethical Thinking When discussing how women writers are judged differently
How to introduce
Share Behn's complaints that male critics attacked her for writing about desire and sex, while they praised male writers for doing the same. Ask students: does this happen in any form today? Discuss work by women in film, music, journalism, or online. Do women face different expectations? The answer is often yes, though the specific rules have changed. Behn was making this observation over 300 years ago. Students can see how old the pattern is.
Further Reading

For deeper reading, Janet Todd's The Secret Life of Aphra Behn (1997) is a thorough modern biography. Angeline Goreau's Reconstructing Aphra (1980) is an earlier classic. For scholarship, the collection Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism, edited by Heidi Hutner (1993), gathers many important essays. Derek Hughes and Janet Todd edited The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn (2004), which is a reliable starting point for any topic.

Key Ideas
1
The Question About Slavery
2
A Royalist in a Changing World
3
The Long Silence and the Rediscovery
Key Quotations
"I write for bread and not ashamed to own it."
— Paraphrased from Behn's prefaces; the sentiment appears across multiple prefaces and letters
Behn is admitting plainly that she writes to make money. This was looked down on by many critics of her time, and for centuries afterwards. A proper writer, it was said, wrote for art, for truth, for the nation, not for cash. Behn's reply is direct. She writes to eat. She has no shame about it. For advanced students, the line is a useful challenge to snobbery. Professional writers have always had to earn a living. The idea that 'real' writing is above money has often been used to keep out people who could not afford to write for free. Most of them have been women, working-class people, or people from outside the upper class. Behn's honesty about the money is itself a kind of radical move.
"Variety is the soul of pleasure."
— The Rover, Act V, 1677
This line is spoken by Willmore, the main male character in The Rover. He uses it to defend his chasing of many women. But Behn is not simply agreeing with him. The line shows a worldview that her plays often examine. Men want variety. Women are often trapped into staying with one man by law and custom. The same freedom is not available to both sides. Behn shows this clearly without always saying it directly. Her method is to let her characters speak their own values and let the audience see what follows. For advanced students, this is a useful writing technique. A good playwright does not have to preach. She can let her characters reveal themselves, and let the audience notice the contradictions.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Critical Thinking When discussing how writers' politics and their work relate
How to introduce
Aphra Behn was a royalist. She supported the king. She attacked the people who had fought against the monarchy. Modern readers often want to claim her as a feminist pioneer, which she was in some ways. Her political views were more conservative. Discuss with students: can a writer's politics and their groundbreaking work be at odds? What do we do about it? The mature answer is to read her politics honestly, not to hide them, and to hold the full picture. Most historical figures are mixed this way.
Cultural Heritage and Identity When discussing how writers are lost and found
How to introduce
Behn was famous in her lifetime, dismissed for 200 years, and recovered by feminist scholars in the 20th century. Ask students: how does a writer disappear from public view? How is a writer recovered? The story shows that fame does not track value in any simple way. A writer can be important and still be forgotten, especially if they come from a group that mainstream critics have ignored. Recovering lost writers is real work done by real scholars. This is the same pattern we see with Firmin and others in this library.
Common Misconceptions
Common misconception

Aphra Behn is simply the first female novelist in English.

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What to teach instead

She was many things beyond a novelist. She wrote around 19 plays, making her one of the most performed playwrights of her time. She wrote poetry, including some of the most sexually direct poems of the 17th century. She translated French and Latin works. She was a spy. Her novel Oroonoko is important, but it came late in her career. Reducing her to 'early novelist' misses most of what she did. She was first of all a playwright, which was how she earned most of her income.

Common misconception

Oroonoko is a modern anti-slavery novel.

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What to teach instead

The picture is more complicated. The book does show slavery as cruel and its hero as noble. This pushed against 17th-century assumptions. But Behn does not call for the abolition of slavery as a whole. Her hero is noble partly because he is royal, not because all humans deserve freedom. She writes about other enslaved Africans with racial assumptions of her time. Calling the book 'anti-slavery' without qualification overstates its position. Calling it 'pro-slavery' understates its real sympathy for the hero. The honest reading holds both sides.

Common misconception

Everything Behn wrote about her life is true.

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What to teach instead

Much of what we 'know' about Behn comes from her own writings and from the first biographies published soon after her death. Modern scholars have found that many of these claims cannot be checked. Some are probably exaggerated. Behn herself may have worked to keep her past unclear. We know roughly when she was born and when she died. We know where she was for parts of her life. Many other details are guesses. Treating Behn's life as a certain timeline is a mistake. Much of it is informed speculation.

Common misconception

The narrator of Oroonoko is Aphra Behn speaking directly.

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What to teach instead

The narrator shares some features with Behn (she is English, female, educated, present in Surinam). But the narrator is also a fictional character. She places herself in scenes Behn may not have witnessed. She gives herself a social position higher than Behn's actual background. Treating the narrator as pure autobiography has led to many wrong claims about Behn's life. Reading her as a character that Behn built out of her own experience, plus fiction, plus authorial craft, is more accurate.

Intellectual Connections
Influenced
Virginia Woolf
Woolf is the most important modern reader of Behn. In A Room of One's Own (1929), she honoured Behn as the woman who had earned all later women writers the right to speak their minds. Woolf took Behn seriously at a time when most literary critics dismissed her. This was part of a wider project: restoring women writers to the English tradition. Reading them together shows a line from the first professional woman writer in English to the modernist novelist who remembered her. Without Woolf's attention, Behn's modern recovery would have taken longer.
Anticipates
Mary Wollstonecraft
Wollstonecraft, writing a century after Behn, made the first famous argument for women's education and rights in English. She did not write like Behn. She wrote careful philosophical prose rather than witty plays. But she depended on the work Behn had done. Behn had shown that a woman could write in public on serious subjects and be taken seriously (sometimes). Wollstonecraft could build on this ground. The line from Behn through Wollstonecraft to later feminists runs through English writing for the next two hundred years.
Complements
Toussaint Louverture
Toussaint led the Haitian Revolution over 100 years after Behn's death. Oroonoko, her fictional African hero, led a small, failed slave uprising in Surinam. Reading them together shows a striking contrast. Behn could only imagine a slave rebellion that ended in tragedy. Toussaint actually led one that ended in freedom. Her book was an early sign that a European writer could see an enslaved African as a full human. His life showed what actual enslaved people could achieve when given the chance and the organisation. The two figures belong to the same long history, one in fiction and one in fact.
In Dialogue With
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sor Juana, the Mexican nun and poet, was almost a direct contemporary of Behn. Both wrote in the late 17th century. Both were women defending their right to write in a world that preferred them silent. Sor Juana did it from inside a convent, working in Spanish and Latin. Behn did it from the London theatres, working in English. Their lives were very different. Their basic task was the same: to be taken seriously as writers while being women. Reading them together shows that women writers of this period worked in parallel across continents.
Complements
Flora Tristan
Tristan, writing 150 years after Behn, also made a living through her writing and spoke openly about things women were not supposed to discuss. Behn wrote about sexual desire. Tristan wrote about forced marriage and the legal trap of being a wife. Both drew on their own experience. Both paid a cost for speaking plainly. Reading them together shows a line of European women writers who refused to stay in the spaces their societies marked for them.
In Dialogue With
Aimé Césaire
Césaire, the 20th-century Martinican poet and thinker, wrote about European colonialism with fierce criticism. Behn, in the 17th century, was part of the colonial system Césaire later attacked. Her novel Oroonoko shows some of the cruelties of colonial slavery. It also shows the assumptions that helped that system work. Reading them together shows the long arc of colonial thought: a 17th-century English royalist writing from inside the system, a 20th-century Caribbean writer attacking it from outside. Behn would not have liked what Césaire wrote. His critique is partly of the world she defended.
Further Reading

For research-level engagement, the Cambridge edition of The Works of Aphra Behn, edited by Janet Todd (seven volumes), is the scholarly standard. Ros Ballaster's Seductive Forms: Women's Amatory Fiction from 1684 to 1740 places Behn in her literary context. For the politics of the Oroonoko debate, Laura Brown's essay 'The Romance of Empire: Oroonoko and the Trade in Slaves' is important. Moira Ferguson's work on early women and colonial writing is also valuable. The journal Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700 publishes current Behn scholarship.