Aphra Behn's biographical details, especially those concerned with her birth and early life, remain contested and obscure. No firm date or place of birth have been established. It now seems certain that Behn went to Surinam while still a young woman, around 1663, returning to London probably in 1664. Her marriage also remains obscure ; she began using the name Behn in 1666, but no mention of her husband or his presumed death occur in her writings.
In the middle of 1666 she acted as a spy in the Netherlands, returning to England in debt. Her career as a dramatist began with the staging of The Forced Marriage in 1670. She was soon established as a prolific playwright, with eleven of her plays performed in the following decade. When opportunities for staging her plays diminished, she published a collection of her poetry in 1684, as well as her first prose narrative : Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, based on a current scandal.
She then produced a wide range of fiction, poetry, and translations until her death on 16 April 1689. Paul Salzman is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of English Prose Fiction 1558-170o : A Critical History (Clarendon Press, 1985). He has published widely in the areas of early modern prose fiction and early modern women's writing, including three other editions for Oxford World's Classics.
In the middle of 1666 she acted as a spy in the Netherlands, returning to England in debt. Her career as a dramatist began with the staging of The Forced Marriage in 1670. She was soon established as a prolific playwright, with eleven of her plays performed in the following decade. When opportunities for staging her plays diminished, she published a collection of her poetry in 1684, as well as her first prose narrative : Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, based on a current scandal.
She then produced a wide range of fiction, poetry, and translations until her death on 16 April 1689. Paul Salzman is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of English Prose Fiction 1558-170o : A Critical History (Clarendon Press, 1985). He has published widely in the areas of early modern prose fiction and early modern women's writing, including three other editions for Oxford World's Classics.
