Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn (baptised 1640–1689) was an English playwright, poet and prose writer of the Restoration era, and one of the first English women to earn a living by writing. Charles II employed her as a spy in Antwerp, and after returning to London she was probably briefly imprisoned for debt and then turned to the stage.

Under the pastoral pen name Astrea she found fame with the comedy The Rover and later the short novel Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave. During the Exclusion Crisis, a prologue and an epilogue brought her legal trouble, after which she devoted most of her writing to prose.

A loyal Stuart supporter, she refused to write a poem welcoming William III. She died in April 1689 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.