Aphra Behn, International Woman. The Trailblazing Writer, Spy and Feminist Icon

As it’s International Women’s Day today I wanted to draw attention to a hugely influential female writer, Aphra Behn.
Aphra Behn was one of the first women to ever make a living from being a writer. Born in 1640 in humble circumstances, Aphra led a life that is worthy of a novel itself.

She rubbed shoulders with the famous libertines including Lord Rochester and even worked as a spy for King Charles II. Exact details are sketchy but there is evidence to suggest she was catholic, or had a catholic upbringing, a dangerous thing at the time.
But she had the ear of the newly restored King who employed her to spy for him against the Dutch. She was betrayed however and returned to England impoverished. These money problems forced her to work as a scribe for the King’s Company and the Duke’s Company. This was a great time to be working at the theatre. Cromwell had closed them all and under King Charles II they enjoyed a huge revival.

Behn was able to write plays, poems and prose. But not only that, she was able to stage her play and publish her writings under her own name. She soon became famous and by the late 1670s she was one of the top playwrights in the country.

She was not without her controversies. Her works were often seen as being immoral and scandalous. Although this would perhaps not have been the assessment if a man had written them.
King Charles II issued a warrant for her arrest during the political turmoil that fired up during the end of his reign and Behn died, at the age of 48, having lived a momentous life of scandal, art and politics.

Most importantly she broke through a wall. Women were rarely educated to read and write in her time, she was most likely self-taught. She attacked critics who said she had no place in the world of literature and she left a legacy for countless female writers who followed.

Virgina Woolf said: “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

Charlotte Wood is a feminist and writer of the macabre and sinister. She reads horror, fantasy, classic literature and historical fiction (with a preference for history from a woman’s perspective).