Aphra Behn: A Secret Life
LGBTQIA+ Biography
by Janet Todd
The life, work and history of Aphra Behn: seventeenth century dramatist, poet of the erotic and bisexual, novelist, political propagandist, spy.
All women together ought to let flowers fall on the tomb of Aphra Behn. . . . For it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” Virginia Woolf
Aphra Behn, a spy in the Netherlands and the Americas, was the first professional woman writer. The most prolific dramatist of her age, innovative novelist, translator, lyrical and erotic poet, she expresses a frank sexuality addressing impotence, orgasm and bisexuality, whilst serving as political propagandist for the monarch.
This revised biography of the extraordinary, ground-breaking writer, who is emblematic of the Restoration period, a time of masks and self-fashioning, is set in conflict-ridden England, Europe, and in the mismanaged slave colonies, following the Puritan republic in 1660.
REVIEW
5 out of 5
A book that looks at an important figure in history that is often overlooked in history classes, masterfully written, and an engaging read.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janet Todd is a novelist and internationally renowned scholar, known especially for her biographies of women writers. She is an expert in her field in the long 18th century and has published books on Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Samuel Richardson and Aphra Behn. Her most recent book is Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden, A novel with Pictures.
