Aphra Behn was a British writer during the Restoration era in the 17th century. Behn was one of the first women in history to earn a writing through living and she would inspire many of the great female authors that followed. Virginia Woolf famously wrote in "A Room of One's Own" that all women should lay flowers on the tomb of Aphra Behn because she earned them the right to speak their minds. Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister is an early example of an epistolary novel. The book is loosely based off a scandalous affair between an English lord and his wife's sister in the late 17th century.

Love-letters between a Nobleman and his Sister (Virago Modern Classics)

Literature & Fiction

BEHN, APHRA

Literary

Penguin??Books

"We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues"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.
This new edition of Oroonoko is based on the first printed edition of 1688, and includes a chronology, bibliography and notes. In her introduction, Janet Todd examines Aphra Behn’s views of slavery, colonization and politics, and her position as a professional woman writer in the Restoration.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Oroonoko, the Rover, and Other Works (Penguin Classics)

Penguin Classics

With Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, Aphra Behn, a leading Restoration dramatist, produced what is arguably the first long novel in English. Her witty, racy roman a' clef in three volumes is set in the tumultuous years surrounding the death of Charles II in 1685. A heady mix of eroticism, sex and politics, it concentrates on a sensational aristocratic scandal of the day, the seduction of Henrietta Berkeley by her sister's husband Lord Grey, a notorious libertine, rebel and intimate of King Charles's son, the Duke of Monmouth. 'Love-Letters depicts the desire for erotic domination at the heart of aristocratic Restoration culture - possibly of any culture,' writes Janet Todd in her Introduction. As the novel unfolds, the innocence of Behn's young protagonist Silvia, evident in the sincerity and passion of her love-letters, is undermined; seduction is followed by disillusionment, and Silvia transforms herself into a female rake, bent on conquest rather than love. Portraying a world in which individual appetite rules and all authority is in doubt, Love-Letters brilliantly dramatizes the perverse and anarchic nature of desire.

Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister (Penguin Classics)

A new single-volume edition of an early anti-slavery novel 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 reflects the author’s romantic views of native peoples as being in “the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin.” The novel also reveals Behn’s ambiguous attitude toward slavery: while she favored it as a means to strengthen England’s power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.This new single-volume edition of Oroonoko includes a carefully modernized text accompanied by an introduction, chronology, explanatory notes and suggestions for further reading. 
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Oroonoko (Penguin Classics)

United States

Aphra Behn (1640-89) was both successful and controversial in her own lifetime; her achievements are now recognized less equivocally and her plays, often revived, demonstrate wit, compassion and remarkable range. This edtion brings together her most important comedies in a single volume: The Rover, her best-known play; The Feigned Courtesans, a lively comedy of intrigue; The Lucky Chance, a comedy with a bitter edge, which takes a satirical look at marriage customs; and the dazzling and popular farce, The Emperor of the Moon. All the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation.

The Rover and Other Plays: The Rover; The Feigned Courtesans; The Lucky Chance; The Emperor of the Moon (The ^AWorld's Classics)

Dramas & Plays

Oxford University Press

The most complete collection of the work of Aphra Behn (1640-89) available, this volume contains Oroonoko and five other works of fiction ranging from comedy and high melodrama to tragedy. The works included--The Fair Jilt, Memoirs of the Court of the King of Bantam, The History of the Nun, The Adventure of the Black Lady, and The Unfortunate Bride--are complemented by a generous selection of her poetry from public political verse to lyrics and witty conversation poems.

Oroonoko, and Other Writings (The ^AWorld's Classics)

British & Irish

Aphra Behn (1640-89) was both successful and controversial in her own lifetime; her achievements are now recognized less equivocally and her plays, often revived, demonstrate wit, compassion and remarkable range. This edition brings together her most important comedies in a single volume: The Rover, her best-known play; The Feigned Courtesans, a lively comedy of intrigue; The Lucky Chance, a comedy with a bitter edge, which takes a satirical look at marriage customs; and the dazzling and popular farce, The Emperor of the Moon. All the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation.

The Rover and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)

Oroonoko, and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics)

Aphra Behn (1640-89) was both successful and controversial in her own lifetime; her achievements are now recognized less equivocally and her plays, often revived, demonstrate wit, compassion and remarkable range.  This edition brings together her most important comedies in a single volume: The Rover, her best-known play; The Feigned Courtesans, a lively comedy of intrigue; The Lucky Chance, a comedy with a bitter edge, which takes a satirical look at marriage customs; and the dazzling and popular farce, The Emperor of the Moon.  All the plays have been newly edited and are presented with modernized spelling and punctuation.

The Rover and Other Plays: The Rover; The Feigned Courtesans; The Lucky Chance; The Emperor of the Moon (Oxford Drama Library)

History & Criticism

First staged in 1677, The Rover is a rollicking Restoration comedy about the amorous adventures of a group of Englishmen in Naples during the Carnival celebrations. This OCR-endorsed edition also contains textual notes and an OCR GCE-specific introduction.

OCR The Rover

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BEHN, APHRA. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by BEHN, APHRA