From what little we know if it, English playwright (and translator, novelist and poet) Aphra Behn has a remarkable backstory. While not much is known for certain of her early life, she may have visited Francis Willoughby’s colony in South America and maybe even Virginia. What is better documented is that she, a passionate royalist, spied for the King Charles II in Antwerp during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Returning to England heavily in debt (she was possibly imprisoned briefly) she learned to live off her wits and her writing, with her first play The Forced Marriage staged in 1670.

While Behn was not the only female playwright writing around this time – Katherine Philips, Frances Boothby and Elizabeth Polwhele all had plays produced in the second half of the 17th century – she was certainly the most prolific, authoring about 20 plays over her career and she is often cited as the first female professional writer in English. Her work is infused with a sexual frankness – it was often accused of bawdiness – and she spoke out at the hypocrisy that saw her judged for morals in a way that male colleagues weren’t.

Unfortunately the fame she achieved during her lifetime...