Aphra Behn
12 of 12 portraits matching these criteria:
- subject matching 'Writers tour'
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Aphra Behn
by Robert White, after John Riley
line engraving, 1718
5 1/8 in. x 3 3/8 in. (130 mm x 86 mm) paper size
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Pilgrim Trust, 1966
Reference Collection
NPG D9483
Sitterback to top
- Aphra Behn (née Johnson) (1640-1689), Dramatist, novelist and spy. Sitter associated with 4 portraits.
Artistsback to top
- John Riley (1646-1691), Portrait painter. Artist or producer associated with 101 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.
- Robert White (1645-1703), Engraver. Artist or producer associated with 608 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.
Linked publicationsback to top
- EEBO (Early English Books Online), p. frontispiece
- EEBO (Early English Books Online), p. frontispiece
- 100 Pioneering Women, p. 32 Read entry
According to Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One’s Own (1929), ‘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.’ Aphra Behn (1640-89) was one of the first English women to earn her living by writing (seventeen plays, numerous poetry collections and translations, and thirteen novels, including Oronooko (1688), her anti-slavery novel) – quite a feat in the male bastion of literary Restoration England. Her other achievements are legion: political activist, sexual pioneer, an early abolitionist, a spy (against the Dutch, for Charles II), a feminist and an adventurer. Living as she did in the seventeenth century, with no inherited status or wealth, and, moreover, as a woman, hers was an exceptional life. Yet, while her associate and contemporary John Dryden lies in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, Behn’s memorial is to be found in the east cloister, outside.
- Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689, All the histories and novels written by the late ingenious Mrs. Behn entire in one volume : together with the history of the life and memoirs of Mrs. Behn never before printed ..., 1698, p. frontipiece
- Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689, Poems upon several occasions with a voyage to the island of love : also The lover in fashion, being an account from Lydicus to Lysander of his voyage from the island of love, 1697, p. frontispiece
- Birkett, Dea; Morris, Jan (foreword), Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers, 2004 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 7 July to 31 October 2004), p. 16
Events of 1718back to top
Current affairs
Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland becomes first Lord of the Treasury, the most influential political post in Britain at this time.Transportation Act creates the punishment of penal transportation as an alternative to the death penalty.
Marrow Controversy; an ecclesiastical dispute breaks out in Scotland over the doctrine of atonement.
Art and science
Proper motion of the stars is discovered by Astronomer Royal Edmond Halley.Inventor James Puckle patents an early form of machine gun known as the Puckle Gun.
International
Charles XII of Sweden dies in mysterious circumstances and is succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora.Quadruple Alliance formed as the Holy Roman Empire joins the Triple Alliance to prevent the Spanish changing the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht. War of the Quadruple Alliance begins against Spain until 1720. George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington is made Admiral of the Fleet and thwarts Spanish attempts to take Sicily at the Battle of Cape Passaro.
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