Aphra Behn

Oroonoko, Prince of Abyssinia Aphra Behn

Aphra Benn was a phenomenon: a lone female who was by turns a well-respected playwright, a spy, a convict, and the author of 'Oroonoko', the first English novel. Behn tells the (reputedly true) story of an African Prince, betrayed into slavery, who tires of the perfidy of the whites and leads a slave revolt for freedom - with tragic consequences. The atrocities Behn described shocked Restoration England and greatly advanced the cause of abolitionism. Behn's innovative novel also gave females a literary voice; as Virginia Woolf wrote "...it was she who earned [women] the right to speak their minds."