Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is historically recognized as the first woman to make a living through writing; her plays, novels, poems and pamphlets have met with fresh notoriety since the 20th century. Her work was particularly significant to a group of contemporary writers known as The Female Wits, as well as to later feminist writers like Virginia Woolf. Stories of comedy and intrigue, complete with and masks, mistaken identities, visual deceptions, and complicated love triangles reflect Behn’s remarkable life experiences: her conservative upbringing, her political support of the Tories, her recruitment as a political spy for Charles II, and later speculation of her bisexuality. Behn once wrote that she had led a life dedicated to pleasure and poetry. This sixth volume of Behn’s collected works includes The Lover’s Watch,
Poems Upon Several Occasions,
A Voyage to the Isle of Love,
Westminster Drollery,
Muses Mercury,
Satyr on Dryden,
To Henry Higden, Esq., among others, and critical and explanatory notes for the reader.