Aphra Behn: Meet the Scandalous Writer Who Was Secretly a Spy

She was known by many names in her lifetime, from “Agent 160” to “The Incomparable Astrea,” but Aphra Behn was first and foremost a brilliant, radical writer of the Restoration period who became the first woman in England to make a living from writing. Lesser known than her work as a poet and playwright, though, was Aphra’s espionage work for King Charles II — because yes, the first English professional female writer was also a spy.

As one of Aphra’s biographers wrote, “She is not so much a woman to be unmasked as an unending combination of masks.” Her origin story is unclear and mysterious (most likely by her own design), with several different versions of her early life available from which to choose: was she raised as a poor barber’s daughter in a tiny English village, or did she travel the world growing up as the foster child of a lieutenant general? Nobody knows for sure. Most historians agree she was born sometime around 1640, though, which would put her in her mid-twenties when she accepted an international spying mission (to turn an exiled enemy of the crown in Belgium into a double agent for the king) under the code name Astrea.

After successful completion of that mission, however, the crown disavowed her and refused to pay for her voyage back to England from Belgium. Forced to borrow money to return home, Aphra was thrown into debtor’s prison. Upon her release, she vowed never to depend on anyone else for money ever again, and published her successful first play (The Forc’d Marriage) in 1670. The dozens of plays, poems, and novels that followed won her great popular success and allowed her to live the rest of her life, in her own words, “dedicated to pleasure and poetry.”

Aphra wrote explicitly about her romantic relationships with both men and women, wasn’t shy about expressing her opinions on everything from the wrongs of slavery to a woman’s right to sexual pleasure, and refused to apologize for any of it. Subsequently, society wrote her off as being ‘foul’ and ‘improper’ for centuries, but today she is finally being given her due as an important, pioneering member of the Western literary canon.

Virginia Woolf acknowledged Aphra’s “shady and amorous” reputation in her iconic feminist essay A Room of One’s Own, while also pointing out that every modern professional female writer is in her debt, “for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” So keep writing, literary Smart Girls, and thank Aphra Behn for paving the way.

Who are some of your own favorite trailblazing women throughout history? Let us know in the comments!

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