In 1666, during the Dutch Wars, Behn traveled to Antwerp as a spy in service to King Charles II. Her husband died in 1665, leaving Behn in precarious financial circumstances. By 1658, she had returned to London and married a merchant named Behn who had connections to the court of Charles II. She was brought there either by a couple named Amis, who may have been her parents, or by Johnson, who was appointed as the island’s deputy governor. In the mid 1600s, she traveled to Suriname, West Indies, then under British rule. Or she may have been adopted by John Johnson, a relative of Lord Francis Willoughby (1614-1666). Or she may have been born into the landed gentry, as her evident education in languages and literatures accords with that class. Her prose contributed to the development of the novel as genre in English. \( \newcommand\)Īphra Behn was the first commercially successful woman writer in England in the seventeenth century, writing in various genres, including drama, prose, and poetry.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |