In a time when very few writers - let alone female authors - could support themselves through their craft, Aphra Behn was a well known and highly regarded writer in London. She wrote many plays for the London stage, penned poetry, and wrote what some consider the first English novel (though others consider it a novella or a longish short story). Much of her work cries out against the unequal treatment of women in her era, and thus she suffered the consequences of these claims by enduring harsh criticism and even arrest.
Not much is known about the early life of Aphra Behn; one scholar describes the author as having "a lethal combination of obscurity, secrecy and staginess, which makes...
