The Rover premiered 1677 to such great success that Behn wrote a sequel that was produced in 1681. An extraordinarily popular example of Restoration comedy, the play earned an extended run, enabling Behn to make a fair income from it, receiving the proceeds from the box office every third night.
Willmore (who may have been a parallel to Charles II or John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester) proved to be an extremely popular character, and four years later Behn wrote a sequel to the play. King Charles II was himself a fan of The Rover, and received a private showing of the play.
Critic Susan Carlson argues that despite much of Behn's work facing harsh criticism, The Rover was "perhaps the least tarnished by critical contention over the originality of her work".[1]
The play was later adapted by Mr. John Phillip Kemble in 1790 in a production called Love in Many Masks.[2] Kemble's version featured three acts instead of the normal five. This was not the only abbreviation applied to Behn's original work. The final cut of Kemble's piece saw most of the plot that was pertaining to sex, removed. Hellena's speech on rape and unwanted marriage was left out, and the part of the plot relating to the near rape of Florinda by Willmore is only implied.[3] Even though this version of Aphra Behn's The Rover was much more polite and politically correct, it still received criticism that "the ideas are constantly indelicate, and the language frequently gross."[3] This resembled the reception that Behn's Rover received as well, and resulted in The Rover disappearing from the stage until the late 1970s.[3]
