Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition of The Works of Aphra Behn. It was previously published by other bona fide publishers, and is now, after many years, back in print. This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Aphra Behn, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside The Works of Aphra Behn: It is perhaps not altogether easy to appreciate the multiplicity of difficulties with which the first editor of Mrs. Behn has to cope. Not only is her life strangely mysterious and obscure, but the rubbish of half-a-dozen romancing biographers must needs be cleared away before we can even begin to see daylight. Matter which had been for two centuries accepted on seemingly the soundest authority is proven false; her family name itself was, until my recent discovery, wrongly given; the very question of her portrait has its own vexed (and until now unrecognized) dilemmas. In fine there seems no point connected with our first professional authoress which did not call for the nicest investigation and the most incontrovertible proof before it could be accepted without suspicion or reserve. The various collections of her plays and novels which appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century give us nothing; nay, they rather cumber our path with the trash of discredited _Memoirs_. Pearson's reprint (1871) is entirely valueless: there is no attempt, however meagre, at editing, no effort to elucidate a single allusion; moreover, several of the Novels-- and the Poems in their entirety-- are lacking. I am happy to give (Vol. V) one of the Novels, and that not the least important, _The History of the Nun_, for the first time in any collected edition. Poems, in addition to those which appeared in Mrs. Behn's lifetime, and were never reprinted after, have been gathered with great care from many sources (of which some were almost forgotten). It is hoped that this new issue of Mrs. Behn may prove adequate. Any difficulties in the editing have been more than amply compensated for by the interest shown by many friends. Foremost, my best thanks are due to Mr. Bullen, whose life-long experience of the minuti of editing our best dramatic literature, has been ungrudgingly at my service throughout, to the no small advantage of myself and my work. Mr. Edmund Gosse, C.B., has shown the liveliest interest in the book from its inception, and I owe him most grateful recognition for his kindly encouragement and aid. Nay, more, he did not spare to lend me treasured items from his library so rich in first, and boasting unique, editions of Mrs. Behn. Mr. G. Thorn Drury, K.C., never wearied of answering my enquiries, and in discussion solved many a knotty point. To him I am obliged for the transcript of Mrs. Behn's letter to Waller's daughter-in-law, and also the Satire on Dryden. He even gave of his valuable time to read through the Memoir and from the superabundance of his knowledge made suggestions of the first importance. The unsurpassed library of Mr. T. J. Wise, the well-known bibliographer, was freely at my disposal. In other cases where I have received any assistance in clearing a difficulty I have made my acknowledgement in the note itself.

When Prince Oroonoko’s passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko’s noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn’s visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author’s romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples ‘in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin’. The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude to African slavery – while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

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Excerpt from The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. 1 The personal history of Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to earn her livelihood by author ship, is unusually interesting but very difiicult to unravel and relate. In dealing with her biography iters at different periods have rushed headlong extremes, and we now find that the pendulum swung to its fullest stretch. On the one hand, have prefixed to a collection of the Histories Novels, published in 1696, 'the Life of Mrs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The magic of Naples during Carnival inspires love between a disparate group of local citizens and visiting Englishmen.

'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,' said Virginia Woolf. Yet that tomb, in Westminster Abbey, records one of the few uncontested facts about this Restoration playwright, poet, novelist and spy: the date of her death, 16 April 1689. For the rest secrecy and duplicity are almost the key to her life. She loved codes, making and breaking them; writing her life becomes a decoding of a passionate but playful woman. Janet Todd draws on documents she has rediscovered in the Dutch archives, and on Behn's own writings, to tell a story of court, diplomatic and sexual intrigue, and of the rise from humble origins of the first woman to earn her living as a professional writer. Aphra Behn's first notable employment was as a Royal spy in Holland; she had probably also spied in Surinam. It was not until she was in her thirties that she published the first of the 19 plays and other works which established her fame (though not riches) among her 'good, sweet, honey-candied readers'. Many of her works were openly erotic, indeed as frank as anything by her friends Wycherley and Rochester. Some also offered an inside view of court and political intrigues, and Todd reveals the historical scandals and legal cases behind some of Behn's most famous 'fictions'.

Excerpt from The Novels of Mrs. Aphra Behn To most people nowadays the name of Aphra Behn conveys nothing more intelligible than certain vague associations of license and impropriety. She is dimly remembered as the author of plays and novels, now unread, that embodied the immorality of Restoration times, and were all the more scandalous in that they were written by a woman. Her works are to be found in few libraries, and are rarely met with at the booksellers'. Although they were republished in an expensive form and in a limited edition in 1871, they have now been many years out of print. Nor is this much to be regretted. Her novels are worth reprinting now and again, not because they are more clever, but because they are less offensive to modem taste than her comedies; and in addition to their intrinsic merits, they have an interest for the student of literature. But a general reprint of the plays would hardly be justified, at least, in anything like a cheap and popular form. This is a case where, for many reasons, it is best to have one's reading done by proxy. The obstacles which she herself has set to our appreciation have done her an injustice. In dismissing her merely as a purveyor of scandalous amusement in a profligate age, we are apt to give her none of the credit due to a long career of arduous work and of persevering struggle against adverse circumstances. Mrs. Behn was not only the first Englishwoman who became a novelist and a playwright, but the first of all those numerous women who have earned their livelihood by their pens. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. 4 Sir Patient, who surprises his lady writing a love-letter, which she turns off by appending Isabella's name thereto, is so overwhelmed with her seeming affection and care for his family that he presents her with eight thousand pounds in gold and silver, and resolves to marry his daughter to Fainlove (Wittmore) without any further delay. But whilst he is gone down to prayers and Lucia is entertaining her lover, the old nurse informs him that his little daughter Fanny has long been privy to an intrigue between Knowell and Isabella, whereupon, in great perturbation, he rushes upstairs again to consult with his wife, who hurries Wittmore under the bed. Sir Patient, however, warmed with cordials which he quaffs to revive his drooping spirits, does not offer to quit the chamber, but lies down on the bed, and the gallant is only enabled to slip out unobserved after several accidents each of which nearly betrays his presence. Upon the marriage morning Isabella in a private interview rejects her pseudo-suitor with scorn and contumely, whereat Knowell, who has of intent been listening, reveals to her that it is his friend Wittmore and no real lover who is seemingly courting her, and with his help, whilst Sir Patient is occupied with a consultation of doctors (amongst whom Sir Credulous appears disguised as a learned member of the faculty), Isabella and Knowell are securely married. Lady Knowell, who has feigned a liking for Leander, generously gives him to Lucretia, Sir Patient's attention being still engrossed by the physicians who assemble in great force. Soon after, at Leander's instigation, in order to test his wife, Sir Patient feigns to be dead of a sudden apoplexy, and for a few moments, whilst others are present, Lucia laments him with many plaints and tears, but immediately changes when she is left alone with Wittmore. The lovers' plans, however, are overheard by the husband, who promptly confronts his wife with her duplicity. Amazed and confounded indeed, he forgives Leander and his daughter for marrying contrary to his former wishes; and when Lucia coolly announces her intention to play the hypocrite and puritan no more, but simply to enjoy herself with the moneys he has settled on her without let or proviso, he humorously declares he will for his part also drop the prig and canter, and turn town gallant and spark. In spite of Mrs. Behn's placid assertion in her address 'To the Reader' that she has only taken 'but a very bare hint' from a foreign source, Le Malade Imaginaire, the critics who cried out that Sir Patient Fancy 'was made out of at least four French plays' are patently right. Sir Patient is, of course, Argan throughout and in detail; moreover, in the scene where the old alderman feigns death, there is very copious and obvious borrowing from Act iii of Le Malade Imaginaire. Some of the doctors' lingo also comes from the third and final interlude of Moliere's comedy, whilst the idea of the medical consultation is pilfered from L'Amour Medecin, Act ii, II. Sir Credulous Easy is Monsieur de Porceaugnac, but his first entrance is taken wholesale from Brome's The Damoiselle; or, The New Ordinary (8vo, 1653), Act ii, I, where Amphilus and Trebasco discourse exactly as do Curry and his master. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com