Selected Bibliography:
Aphra Behn (1640?-1689)
Last revised 10 June 2000
Primary and Secondary
- Mary Ann O'Donnell, Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography
of Primary and Secondary Sources (New York: Garland, 1986;
second edition forthcoming, London: Ashgate, 2001).
Secondary
- J. M. Armistead, Four Restoration Playwrights: A Reference
Guide to Thomas Shadwell, Aphra Behn, Nathaniel Lee, and Thomas
Otway (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984).
Manuscript Materials
- Peter Beal, comp., Index of English Literary
Manuscripts, vol. 2: 1625-1700, part 1, Behn to King (London:
Mansell, 1987), 1-6. Lists most of the known Behn manuscripts and
their locations, with references to facsimile reprints, along
with an index of manuscript copies of a number of Behn's poems.
Editions
Collected Works
- The Complete Works of Aphra Behn, ed. Janet Todd, 7
vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto; Columbus: Ohio State
Univ. Press, 1992-1996):
- Vol. 1, Poetry (1992);
- Vol. 2, Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister
(1993);
- Vol. 3, The Fair Jilt and Other Stories (1995);
- Vol. 4, Seneca Unmasqued and Other Prose Translations
(1993);
- Vol. 5, The Plays, 1671-1677 (1996);
- Vol. 6, The Plays, 1678-1682 (1996);
- Vol. 7, The Plays, 1682-1696 (1996).
- The Works of Aphra Behn, ed. Montague Summers, 6 vols.
(London: Heinemann, 1915; rpt. New York: Phaeton, 1967; New York:
Blom, 1967).
Selections and Anthologies
- Oroonoko and Other Stories, ed. Maureen Duffy (London:
Methuen, 1986). Includes Oroonoko, The Fair Jilt,
The History of the Nun, "Memoirs of the Court of the King
of Bantam," "The Unfortunate Bride."
- Five Plays, ed. Maureen Duffy (London: Methuen, 1990).
Contains The Lucky Chance, Rover I, The Widow
Ranter, The False Count, Abdelazer.
- Oroonoko and Other Writings, ed. Paul Salzman, The
World's Classics (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994). Contains
Oroonoko, The Fair Jilt, "Memoirs of the Court of
the King of Bantam," "The Adventure of the Black Lady," "The
Unfortunate Bride," and selected poems, including Behn's poems on
the death of Rochester and of King Charles II.
- The Rover, The Feigned Courtesans, The Lucky Chance, The
Emperor of the Moon, ed. Jane Spencer, The World's Classics
(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995).
- Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works, ed. Janet Todd
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992). Also includes The Fair
Jilt, "Love-Letters to a Gentleman," The Widow Ranter,
and selected poems.
- Oroonoko and Other Stories (Köln: Könemann,
1999). The other stories are The Fair Jilt, The History
of the Nun, "The Adventure of the Black Lady," "The Court of
the King of Bantam," "The Unfortunate Bride."
- The Novels of Mrs Aphra Behn, ed. Ernest A. Baker
(London: Routledge, 1905; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1969).
Includes Oroonoko, The Fair Jilt, Agnes de
Castro, The Lucky Mistake, "The Nun: Or, The Perjured
Beauty."
- Selected Writings of the Ingenious Mrs. Aphra Behn,
ed. Robert Phelps (New York: Grove, 1958; rpt. New York:
Evergreen, 1958; New York: Grove, 1969). Includes The Dutch
Lover, "The Adventure of the Black Lady," "Memoirs of the
Court of the King of Bantam," "The Unfortunate Happy Lady,"
The Fair Jilt, and selected poems.
- The Uncollected Works of Aphra Behn, ed. Germaine
Greer (Stump Cross, Essex: Stump Cross Books, 1989). Reprints
the pindarics and several other poems omitted in Summers, but
included in Todd; valuable notes.
- The Poems of Aphra Behn: A Selection, ed. Janet Todd
(New York: NYU Press, 1994). Includes most of the poems from vol.
1 of Todd's edition of the complete works.
- Selected Poems, ed. Malcolm Hicks (Manchester: Fyfield
[Carcanet] Press, 1993).
Individual Works
"The Adventure of the Black Lady"
- "The Adventure of the Black Lady," in The Oxford Book of
English Love Stories, ed. John Sutherland (New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1996), 1-6.
The City-Heiress
- The City Heiress, ed. W. R. Hersey (New York: Garland,
1987). Revision of Ph.D. diss., Univ. of New Hampshire, 1985.
The Feign'd Curtizans
- Judith Karyn Ludwig, ed. "A Critical Edition of Aphra Behn's
The Feigned Courtesans (1679) with Introduction and Notes"
(Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ., 1976).
- The Feigned Courtesans, in Female Playwrights of
the Restoration: Five Comedies, ed. Paddy Lyons and Fidelis
Morgan, Everyman's Library (London: Dent; Rutland, VT: Tuttle,
1991).
The History of the Nun; or, The Fair
Vow-Breaker
- The History of the Nun: Or, The Fair Vow-Breaker, in
Popular Fiction by Women, 1660-1730: An Anthology, ed.
Paula R. Backscheider and John J. Richetti (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1996), pp. 1-42.
- The History of the Nun: Or, The Fair Vow-Breaker in
Restoration Prose Fiction, 1666-1700, ed. Charles C. Mish
(Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1970), pp. 93-142.
Love-Letters between a Noble-Man and His
Sister
- Love-Letters between a Noble-Man and His Sister, ed.
Janet Todd (London: Penguin, 1996). Text of vol. 2 of Todd's
edition of the complete works; new introduction.
- Love-Letters Between a Noble-man and His Sister, ed.
Maureen Duffy (Harmondsworth: Penguin/Virago, 1987).
The Luckey Chance
- The Luckey Chance, ed. Jean Coakley (New York:
Garland, 1987). Revision of Ph.D. diss., Miami Univ., 1981.
- The Lucky Chance, in The "Other" Eighteenth
Century: English Women of Letters, 1660-1800, ed. Robert W.
Uphaus and Gretchen M. Foster (East Lansing: Colleagues Press,
1991), pp. 62-136. Also reprints several poems.
- The Lucky Chance in The Female Wits: Women
Playwrights of the Restoration, ed. Fidelis Morgan (London:
Virago, 1981), pp. 74-143. Also published separately in the Royal
Court Writers Series (London: Methuen, 1984).
Oroonoko
For a useful study of texts of Oroonoko, see Elizabeth
Kraft, "Aphra Behn's Oroonoko in the Classroom: A Review
of Texts," Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture,
1660-1700 22, no. 2 (1998): 79-96.
- Oroonoko, ed. Joanna Lipking (New York: W. W. Norton,
1997). Includes reprints of several good essays on
Oroonoko along with valuable sources related to slavery.
- "Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: A Critical Edition," ed.
Gerald Duchovnay (Ph.D. diss., Indiana Univ., 1971). An excellent
edition with valuable introduction.
- Oroonoko, ed. Lore Metzger (New York: Norton, 1973).
The first modern separate edition of Oroonoko and
therefore a sentimental favorite. Follows Summers.
- Oroonoko, in The Norton Anthology of Literature by
Women, ed. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 2nd ed. (New
York: Norton, 1996).
- Oroonoko: Or, the Royal Slave, ed. K. A. Sey (Tema:
Ghana Publishing Co. 1977). Contains footnotes concerning things
African.
- Oroonoko, in The Meridian Anthology of Early Women
Writers: British Literary Women from Aphra Behn to Maria
Edgeworth 1660-1800, ed. Katherine Rogers and William
McCarthy (New York: Meridian, 1987), pp. 14-76. Also includes the
preface to The Dutch Lover and "The Golden Age."
- Oroonoko, in British Literature, 1640-1789: An
Anthology, ed. Robert DeMaria, Jr. (London: Blackwell, 1996),
pp. 403-61. Also includes several poems.
- Oroonoko, ed. Catherine Gallagher, Bedford Cultural
Editions (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999). Also includes
material related to the "Triangular Trade" relating to Africa,
the Caribbean, and England. Provides excerpts from Mandeville,
Montaigne, Jonson, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Defoe, and other
works by Behn for literary context. Uses Todd's text.
- Oroonoko, ed. Catherine Gallagher, Bedford Cultural
Editions (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999). Forthcoming.
- Oroonoko, the Royal Slave, ed. Adelaide P. Amore
(Lanham, Md.: Univ. Press of America, 1987). Some textual
problems.
- Note: 'Biyi Bandele's Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: In a New
Adaptation (Charlbury, Oxon: Amber Lane Press, 1999) is a
theatrical re-creation partly based on Behn's novel but more
reliant on Southerne's drama.
The Rover
- The Rover (Videorecording), a BBC Production for the
Open University in Association with the Women's Playhouse Trust
(n.p.: Open Univ., 1995). Available through Routledge. A
Rover played in a large sand-filled arena filled with
characters on bicycles and in rickshaws; however, lively and true
to Behn's text.
- The Rover in Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the
Canon, ed. W. R. Owens and Lizabeth Goodman (London:
Routledge in Association with the Open University, 1996). Tied to
the videorecording, above. Includes photographs; essays focus on
performance.
- The Rover, ed. Anne Russell (Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview, 1994; 2nd ed. 1999). Good introduction; good notes.
The second edition adds excerpts from early biographical
materials, from Behn's comments on her own work, and a section
from 5.1 of Kemble's adaptation, Love in Many Masks.
- The Rover: Or The Banish't Cavaliers, ed. Frederick M.
Link, Regents Restoration Drama (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1966).
- The Rover, ed. Marion Lomax, The New Mermaids (London:
A. C. Black; New York: Norton, 1995).
- The Rover, with Commentary and Notes by Bill Naismith,
Methuen Student Edition (London: Methuen Drama, 1993). Follows
Summers's text. Includes sections on background and commentary,
along with a synopsis of the action. Photographs from the Royal
Shakespeare Company production at the Swan Theatre,
Stratford-upon-Avon, 1986, starring Jeremy Irons as Willmore.
- The Rover in The Bedford Introduction to Drama,
ed. Leo Jacobus, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).
- The Rover in The HBJ Anthology of Drama, ed. W.
B. Worthen (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993).
- The Rover in Drama and Performance, ed. Gary
Vena and Andrea Nouryeh (New York: HarperCollins, 1995).
- The Rover in Major Women Writers of
Seventeenth-Century England, ed. James Fitzmaurice, Josephine
A. Roberts, Eugene R. Cunnar, Nancy A. Gutierrez, and Carol
Barash (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 217-331.
Also includes selected poems.
- An Adaptation of The Rover (The Banished Cavaliers),
adapted by John Barton with commentary by Simon Trussler (London:
Swan Theatre Plays published by Methuen by arrangement with the
Royal Shakespeare Company, 1986). Popular acting script, but an
adaptation created by cutting about 550 lines of Behn's text and
adding about 350 lines, many taken from Killigrew's
Thomaso.
- The Rover, in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century
Comedy, ed. Scott McMillan, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1997).
- The Rover, in The Broadview Anthology of Drama,
ed. Jennifer Wise and Craig Walker (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview
Press, 1998).
- The Rover, in The Sensational Restoration, ed.
H. James Jensen (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1996),
283-362.
Sir Patient Fancy
- Sir Patient Fancy, in The Meridian Anthology of
Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Plays by Women, ed.
Katharine Rogers (Harmondsworth: Penguin; New York, Meridian,
1994). U.S. title: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Plays by
Women.
"The Unfortunate Happy Lady"
- "The Unfortunate Happy Lady," in An Anthology of
Seventeenth-Century Fiction, ed. Paul Salzman (Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 527-53.
The Widdow Ranter
- The Widow Ranter: A Critical Edition, ed. Aaron
R. Walden (New York: Garland, 1993). Includes ten documents
relating to Virginia and Bacon's Rebellion; maps.
- The Widdow Ranter, in The English Literatures of
America, 1500-1800, ed. Myra Jehlen and Michael Warner (New
York: Routledge, 1997). Reprints Bacon's Manifesto.
Selected Poetry
- Kissing the Rod, ed. Germaine Greer, Susan Hastings,
Jeslyn Medoff, and Melinda Sansone (London: Virago, 1988; New
York: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989). Concise and
well-documented biographical headnote prefaces seven of Behn's
poems; good explanatory notes.
Published Letters, Journals, Diaries, Notebooks
- New Light on Aphra Behn, ed. William Cameron
(Auckland: Univ. of Auckland Press, 1961; rpt. Darby, PA: Arden
Library, 1978). Reprints many of the spying reports and letters,
1665-66, from the Public Record Office. Important biographical
study.
- Mary Ann O'Donnell, "A Verse Miscellany of Aphra Behn:
Bodleian Library MS Firth c.16," in English Manuscript Studies
1100-1700, ed. Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths, vol. 2
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 189-227. Examines a commonplace
book partly in Behn's hand.
- "Love Letters to a Gentleman" (eight letters purported to
have been written by Behn to an unidentified lover), first
published in The Histories and Novels of the Late Ingenious
Mrs. Behn (London, 1696); rpt. in Todd's edition, 3:260-70.
- Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, and Several
Occasions (London, 1718). Letters allegedly by Behn to Mrs.
Price, John Hoyle, and "Philander."
- "Memorials of Literary Characters -- no. XIV. Letters of Mrs
Aphra Behn, the Poetess, to Tonson the Bookseller,"
Gentleman's Magazine 5 (May 1836): 481-82. Prints letter
now at Folger and another now lost, although there is extant an
early eighteenth-century transcript of it at Yale.
- Ithuriel, "Aphra Behn," Notes and Queries 2nd series,
8 (1859): 265-66. Petitions related to her debts.
Biographical Materials
- For a study of recent biographies, see Cynthia L. Caywood,
"Deconstructing Aphras: Aphra Behn and Her Biographers."
Restoration: Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 24, no.
1 (Spring 2000): 15-34.
- "Memoirs on the Life of Mrs. Behn by a Gentlewoman of Her
Acquaintance," in The Histories and Novels of the Late
Ingenious Mrs. Behn (London, 1696). Greatly enlarged in "The
History of the Life and Memoirs of Mrs. Behn," in All the
Histories and Novels, 3rd ed. (London, 1698). See Robert
Adams Day, "Aphra Behn's First Biography," Studies in
Bibliography 22 (1969): 227-40.
- Janet Todd, The Secret Life of Aphra Behn (London:
Andre Deutsch, 1996; New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1997).
- Maureen Duffy, The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn
1640-89 (London: Cape, 1977).
- Angeline Goreau, Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography
of Aphra Behn (New York: Dial, 1980).
- S. J. Wiseman, Aphra Behn, Writers and Their Work
(Plymouth, Eng.: Northcote House, 1996).
- George Woodcock, The Incomparable Aphra (London:
Boardman, 1948); rpt. as Aphra Behn: The English Sappho
(Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1989).
- Henry Allen Hargreaves, "The Life and Plays of Mrs. Aphra
Behn" (Ph.D. diss., Duke Univ., 1960). Remains a solid study of
Behn's life and a good survey of her dramatic works.
- A. Purvis, "Mrs. Aphra Behn," Amateur Historian 1, no.
9 (Dec. 1952-Jan. 1954): inside front cover, opposite p. 261.
Discredits Gosse's Aphra Johnson born at Wye in 1640 and
Summers's change of "Johnson" to "Amis."
- Harrison Platt, "Astrea and Celadon: An Untouched Portrait of
Aphra Behn," PMLA 49 (1934), 544-59. An important study of
documents relating to the Surinam colony.
- Jane Jones, "New Light on the Background and Early Life of
Aphra Behn," N&Q 37, no. 3 (Sept. 1990): 288-93; rpt.
in Todd, Aphra Behn Studies (see below).
- Mary Ann O'Donnell, "Aphra Behn: Tory Wit and Unconventional
Woman," in Women Writers of the Seventeenth Century, ed.
Katharina Wilson and Frank Warnke (Athens: Univ. of Georgia
Press, 1989), pp. 341-74. Brief bio-bibliographical study.
- James Fitzmaurice, "Aphra Behn and the Abraham's
Sacrifice Case," Huntington Library Quarterly 56
(1993): 319-26.
- P. A. Hopkins, "Aphra Behn and John Hoyle: A Contemporary
Mention," N&Q 41 (June 1994): 176-80.
Criticism
Collections
- Aphra Behn Studies, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996). Fifteen essays on Behn's biography,
prose, poetry, drama.
- Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism,
ed. Heidi Hutner (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia,
1993). Fourteen essays, mostly theoretical.
- Aphra Behn, ed. Janet Todd, New Casebooks (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1999). Reprints eleven standard essays on
Behn.
Books and Articles
- Gellert Spencer Alleman, Matrimonial Law and the Materials
of Restoration Comedy, (Wallingford, Pa.: Privately
published, 1942). Contains revealing information about betrothal
and marital contracts in Behn's plays.
- Paula R. Backscheider, Spectacular Politics: Theatrical
Power and Mass Culture in Early Modern England (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993). Parts of the first three
chapters rpt. as "Sex, Sin and Ideology: The Drama's Gift to the
Genesis of the Novel," Lumen XII, ed. Henri Mydlarski and
David Oakleaf (Edmonton: Academic, 1993), pp. 1-15.
- Ros Ballaster, Seductive Forms: Women's Amatory Fiction
from 1684 to 1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Excerpted
in Aphra Behn: New Casebooks, ed. Janet Todd (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 143-57.
- Carol Barash, English Women's Poetry, 1649-1714: Politics,
Community, and Linguistic Authority (Oxford: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1996). Section on Behn is the most thorough examination of
her poetry to date. Abridged rpt. in Aphra Behn: New
Casebooks, ed. Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1999), pp. 104-11.
- Dagney Boebel, "In the Carnival World of Adam's Garden:
Roving and Rape in Behn's Rover," in Broken Boundaries:
Women and Feminism in Restoration Drama, ed. Catherine
Quinsey (Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky, 1996), pp. 54-70.
- Laura Brown, "The Romance of Empire: Oroonoko and the Trade
in Slaves," The New Eighteenth Century: Theory, Politics, and
English Literature, ed. Felicity Nussbaum and Laura Brown
(New York: Methuen, 1987), pp. 41-61; rpt. in Early Women
Writers: 1600-1720, ed. Anita Pacheco (London and New York:
Longman, 1998); rpt. in Aphra Behn: New Casebooks, ed.
Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 180-208.
Rev. rpt.in Brown, Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early
Eighteenth-Century Literature (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press,
1993), pp. 23-63. Abridged version in Oroonoko, ed. Joanna
Lipking, Norton Critical Edition (New York: Norton, 1997), pp.
232-45.
- J. Douglas Canfield, Tricksters & Estates: On the
Ideology of Restoration Comedy (Lexington: Univ. Press of
Kentucky, 1997). An important study of several of the plays.
- J. Douglas Canfield, Heroes and States: On the Ideology of
Restoration Tragedy (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky,
1999). A companion to Tricksters & Estates.
- Warren Chernaik, Sexual Freedom in Restoration
Literature (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995).
- Robert L. Chibka, "'Oh! Do Not Fear a Woman's Invention':
Truth, Falsehood, and Fiction in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko,"
Texas Studies in Language and Literature 30, no. 4 (Winter
1988): 510-37. Abridged version in Oroonoko, ed. Joanna
Lipking, Norton Critical Edition (New York: Norton, 1997),
220-32.
- Bernard Dhuicq, "Further Evidence on Aphra Behn's Stay in
Surinam," N&Q 26 (December 1979): 524-26.
- Elin Diamond, "Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behn's The
Rover," ELH 56 (1989): 519-41; rpt. in Early Women
Writers: 1600-1720, ed. Anita Pacheco (London and New York:
Longman, 1998); rpt. in Aphra Behn: New Casebooks, ed.
Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 32-56.
- Robert A. Erickson, "Mrs A. Behn and the Myth of
Oroonoko-Imoinda," Eighteenth-Century Fiction 5, no. 3
(April 1993): 201-16.
- Margaret Ferguson, "Juggling the Categories of Race, Class
and Gender: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko," Women's Studies
19 (1991): 159-81; rpt. in Women, "Race," and Writing in the
Early Modern Period, ed. Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker
(London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 209-24; rpt. in Aphra Behn: New
Casebooks, ed. Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1999), pp. 209-33.
- Moira Ferguson, "Oroonoko: Birth of a Paradigm,"
New Literary History 23, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 339-59; rpt.
in Subject to Others: British Women Writers and Colonial
Slavery (New York: Routledge, 1992), 27-49.
- Richard Frohock, "Violence and Awe: The Foundations of
Government in Aphra Behn's New World Settings,"
Eighteenth-Century Fiction 8, no. 4 (July 1996): 437-52.
On Oroonoko and The Widdow Ranter.
- Catherine Gallagher,"Who Was That Masked Woman?: The
Prostitute and the Playwright in the Plays of Aphra Behn,"
Women's Studies 14/15 (1988): 23-42; rpt. in Last
Laughs: Perspectives on Women and Comedy, ed. Regina Barreca,
Gender and Culture, 2 (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1988); rpt.
in Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism,
ed. Heidi Hutner (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia,
1993), 65-85; rpt. in Aphra Behn: New Casebooks, ed. Janet
Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 12-31; rev. rpt. in
Nobody's Story: The Vanishing Acts of Women Writers in
Marketplace, 1670 to 1820 (Berkeley: Univ. of California
Press, 1994), 1-48.
- Germaine Greer, Slip-shod Sybils: Recognition, Rejection,
and the Woman Poet (London: Viking, 1995). Devotes two
chapters to Behn.
- Elaine Hobby, Virtue of Necessity: English Women's Writing
1649-1688 (London: Virago, 1988; Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan
Press, 1989). Considers Behn along with other women writers of
the period in the subcategories of Prose, Drama, Poetry under
Romantic Love
- David E. Hoegberg, "Caesar's Toils: Allusion and Rebellion in
Oroonoko," Eighteenth-Century Fiction 7, no. 3
(April 1995): 239-58.
- Derek Hughes, English Drama, 1660-1700 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996). Searching and provocative study of Behn's
plays (and plays attributed to her).
- Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick
Poets (Oxford, 1691; rpt. Augustan Reprint Society, introd.
by John Loftis, 2 vols, Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library, 1971). Still worth looking into.
- Frederick M Link, Aphra Behn, Twayne English Authors
Series (New York: Twayne, 1968). Still useful, especially for
undergraduates.
- B. G. MacCarthy, Women Writers: Their Contributions to the
English Novel, 1621-1744 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1944); rpt. as
vol. 1 of The Female Pen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1944-1947)
and as The Female Pen, preface by Janet Todd (New York:
New York Univ. Press, 1994). Contains a survey of the prose
fiction.
- Robert Markley, "'Be Impudent, Be Saucy, Forward, Bold,
Touzing, and Leud': The Politics of Masculine Sexuality and
Feminine Desire in Behn's Tory Comedies," in Cultural Readings
of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century English Theater, ed. J.
Douglas Canfield and Deborah C. Payne (Athens: Univ. of Georgia
Press, 1995), pp. 114-40.
- Michael McKeon, The Origin of the English Novel
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1987).
- Jeslyn Medoff, "The Daughters of Behn and the Problem of
Reputation," in Women, Writing, History, 1640-1740, ed.
Isobel Grundy and Susan Wiseman (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press,
1992), pp. 33-54.
- Sara Heller Mendelson, "Aphra Behn," The Mental World of
Stuart Women: Three Studies (Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts
Press, 1987), 116-84. Valuable study.
- Jessica Munns, "'But to the Touch Were Soft': Pleasure,
Power, and Impotence in 'The Disappointment' and 'The Golden
Age,'" in Aphra Behn Studies, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996): 178-96; rpt. in Aphra Behn: New
Casebooks, ed. Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1999), 85-103.
- Susan J. Owen,"'Suspect My Loyalty when I Lose My Virtue':
Sexual Politics and Party in Aphra Behn's Plays of the Exclusion
Crisis, 1678-83," Restoration: Studies in English Literary
Culture, 1660-1700 18, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 37-47; rpt. in
Aphra Behn: New Casebooks, ed. Janet Todd (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 57-72.
- Anita Pacheco, "Royalism and Honor in Aphra Behn's
Oroonoko," Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
34, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 491-506.
- David Paxman, "Oral and Literate Discourse in Aphra Behn's
Oroonoko," Restoration 18 (1994): 88-103.
- Jacqueline Pearson, "Gender and Narrative in the Fiction of
Aphra Behn," The Review of English Studies, 42 (1991):
40-54, 179-91; rpt. in Aphra Behn: New Casebooks, ed.
Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 111-42.
- Jacqueline Pearson, The Prostituted Muse: Images of Women
and Women Dramatists: 1642-1737 (London: Harvester; New York:
St. Martin's, 1988).
- Ellen Pollack, "Beyond Incest: Gender and Politics of
Transgression in Aphra Behn's Love-Letters between a Nobleman
and His Sister," in Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory,
and Criticism, ed. Heidi Hutner (Charlottesville: Univ. Press
of Virginia, 1993), pp. 151-86; rpt. in Aphra Behn: New
Casebooks, ed. Janet Todd (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1999), pp. 158-79.
- Cynthia Richards, "'The Pleasures of Complicity': Sympathetic
Identification and the Female Reader in Early Eighteenth-Century
Women's Amatory Fiction," Eighteenth Century 36, no. 3
(1995): 220-33. Probes a section of Love Letters between a
Noble-Man and His Sister.
- Paul Salzman, English Prose Fiction 1558-1700: A Critical
History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
- Jane Spencer, The Rise of the Woman Novelist: From Aphra
Behn to Jane Austen (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). Chapter on
Behn rpt. in Early Women Writers: 1600-1720, ed. Anita
Pacheco (London and New York: Longman, 1998). Abridged version in
Oroonoko, ed. Joanna Lipking, Norton Critical Edition (New
York: Norton, 1997), 209-20.
- William C. Spengemann, "The Earliest American Novel: Aphra
Behn's Oroonoko," Nineteenth-Century Fiction
30 (1984): 384-414. Abridged version in Oroonoko, ed.
Joanna Lipking, Norton Critical Edition (New York: Norton, 1997),
199-209.
- Janet Todd, The Critical Fortunes of Aphra Behn
(Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998).
- Janet Todd, "'An Honor and Glory to Our Sex': Aphra Behn," in
The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing and Fiction,
1660-1800 (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 69-83.
- Janet Todd, "Spectacular Deaths: History and Story in Aphra
Behn's Love Letters, Oroonoko, and The Widow
Ranter,'" in Gender, Art and Death (New York:
Continuum, 1993), pp. 31-62. Abridged as "A Spectacular Death:
History and Story in The Widow Ranter,'" in her Aphra
Behn: New Casebooks (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999),
73-84.
- Marilyn Williamson, Raising Their Voices, 1650-1750
(Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1990).
- S. J. Wiseman, Aphra Behn, Writers and Their Work
(Plymouth, Eng.: Northcote House, 1996). After a brief
biographical introduction, Wiseman provides a chapter each on the
poetry, the plays, and the fiction. A good starting place.
- Lisa Zeitz and Peter Thoms. "Power, Gender, and Identity in
Aphra Behn's 'The Disappointment.'" Studies in English
Literature 1500-1900 37, no. 3 (Summer 1997): 501-516.
Electronic Resources
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