Best-remembered today as England's first female professional writer (although it
turns out in the 19th Century her name was a euphemism for a reet dorty hoor,
society having decided that "female professional writer" wasn't actually something
they were ready for yet, thanks,) Aphra Behn's most famous play is
The Rover, or,
The Banish'd Cavaliers. The subtitle sets the action a couple of decades before
the play's writing, during the exile of the prince who would eventually be Restored
as Charles II. His followers, equally unwelcome in England during Cromwell's rule,
had a mixed reputation, seen by some as accomplished soldiers, by others as
thrill-seekers lacking morals. Behn gives us just such a mixed picture - veering
towards the latter - in her quartet of Cavaliers who end up in an unnamed Spanish
town during Carnival season, and intend to make the most of its spirit.
