Behn, Aphra (1640–1689)

English novelist and dramatist. She was the first woman in England to earn her living as a writer. Her works were criticized for their explicitness; they frequently present events from a woman's point of view. Her novel Oroonoko (1688), based on her visit to Suriname, is an attack on slavery.

Between 1670 and 1687 fifteen of her plays were produced, including The Forced Marriage (1670) and The Rover (1677). As in The Lucky Chance (1686), condemnation of forced and mercenary marriages was a recurring theme in her work. She had the patronage of James I and was employed as a government spy in Holland in 1666.

Her writing is characterized by an earthy realism tinged with sentimentality, and a taste for the rare, exotic, and surprising.