BEHN, Len, AFRA, or APIIRA ( 1640-89 ) . An English novelist and playwright. She was born at Wye, in Kent, the daughter of John Johnson, a barber. When a child she sailed to Surinam, South America, with the Lieutenant Governor, whom she was accustomed to speak of as her father. He died on the passage out. but the family continued the voyage, and remained in Surinam for some time. Here the young girl made the acquaintance of the celebrated slave Oroonoko, who afterwards became the subject of one of her novels, and of a tragedy by Sontherne. Returning to England, she married a merchant of Dutch extraction named Behn, was presented at Court, where her personal appearance and vivacious freedom of manners pleased the King, who deputed her to watch events in Flanders. She accordingly went to Antwerp. where she succeeded in discovering the intention of the Dutch to sail np the Thames and "Medway, and communicated the secret to the English Court, which, however, took no is it ice of the informa tion—a slight that caused Sirs. Behn to throw
up State politics in disgust. On her return to England she was associated with all the profli gate wits, as well as the more staid scholars and poets of the time, and devoted herself to litera ture. ller numerous plays, poems, tales, and letters are disfigured by general impurity of tone and indecency of language; and, in point of intellectual ability, none of her works de serve the high praise lavished on them by Dry den, Cotton, Sontherne, and others. Of them all, Oroonoko is worth perusal. interesting in itself, it also holds a place in the progress of English fiction, as it shows, at a time when extravagant romances were the fashion, a tendency to realis tic effort. TS. Behn was buried in Westmin ster Abbey. Consult her Works (London, 1871), and Anglia for January, 1902.