BERN, APHRA (otherwise AFRA, APHARA or AYFARA) (164o-1689), British dramatist and novelist and the first English woman to earn her living as a writer, was baptized at Wye, Kent, in 1640. Her father, John Johnson, was a barber. While still a child she was taken out to Surinam, then an English possession, from which she returned to England in 1658, when it was handed over to the Dutch. In Surinam Aphra learned the history, and acquired a personal knowledge of the African prince Oroonoko and his beloved Imoinda, whose adventures she has related in her novel, Oroonoko. She married a London merchant of Dutch ex traction, named Behn. The wit and abilities of Mrs. Behn brought her into high estimation at court, and after her husband's death in 1666, Charles II. employed her on secret service in the Neth erlands during the Dutch War. At Antwerp she successfully accomplished the objects of her mission; and in the latter end of she wormed out of one Van der Aalbert the design formed by De Ruyter, in conjunction with the De Witts, of sailing up the Thames and burning the English ships in their harbours. This she communicated to the English court, but although the event proved her intelligence to have been well founded, it was at the time disregarded and she received no reward. A period of the utmost poverty followed—she was imprisoned for debt for a short time—and this led to her writing as a means of supporting herself. In 167o her first play, The Forc'd Marriage, was pro duced, and was followed by a succession of dramas which con tinued till her death. She was most successful as a writer of witty and vivacious comedies, of which The Rover (1677 and 1681) is an excellent example; but her versatility, like her output, was immense. She was well read, and often adapted the works of the older dramatists, The City Heiress, based upon Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters, being a case in point ; but although she frequently borrowed, some of her most notable triumphs were absolutely original. The City Heiress is of further interest as displaying another of her many interests : together with The Roundheads (1682), which is an attack on the Puritans, it repre sents the part she played in the political battle of the time. Al though the dramas comprise the bulk of her work, her prose works of fiction are of equal interest from the point of view of literary history. Oroonoko exerted unquestionable influence on the devel opment of the novel, and Macaulay, admitted that, in spite of the coarseness which disfigures her work, the best of Defoe was not beyond her reach. Besides plays and tales, she published transla tions and poems. She attained great popularity, and had become the centre of much scandal before her death in 1689. The Widow Ranter, based on the story of the rebellion of Stanley Bacon in Virginia was produced posthumously in 169o. Among others of her plays may be mentioned Sir Patient Fancy (1678) which shows the influence of her French reading, and the Feigned Cow-tezans of 1679.
See The Works of Aphra Behn, edited by Montague Summers (1915). Plays written by the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn (1702; re printed, 1871) ; also "Aphra Behn's Gedichte and Prosawerke," by P. Siegel in Anglia (Halle, vol. xxv., pp. 86-128, 329-385, 1902) ; and A. C. Swinburne's essay on "Social Verse" in Studies in Prose and Poetry (1894) ; V. Sackville West, Aphra Behn (5927).