The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume III
1915
Aphra Behn wrote like someone who had nothing to lose and everything to prove. As the first English woman to publish fiction and the first to earn her living by her pen, she brought a fearlessness to Restoration comedy that still crackles across the centuries. This volume gathers her comic plays from the height of her powers, plays that pierce through the glittering surface of 17th-century London to expose the absurdities beneath: the vain men posturing for attention, the women maneuvering for autonomy within a world that refuses to grant it, the endless dance of desire and deception. "The Town-Fop" delivers exactly what its title promises: a vain knight convinced of his own brilliance, betrothed to a woman who loves another, stumbling through romantic machinations while the world laughs. But beneath the farcical surface, Behn is doing something radical. She's showing women who think, who scheme, who want things fiercely and refuse to apologize for it. The comedy is sharp, the social satire cuts both ways, and the wit lands with a precision that feels almost modern. This is Behn at her most entertaining and most subversive.
