Description: "This anthology of four plays written and/or performed between 1662 and 1677, offers a unique snapshot of the diverse nature of Restoration drama by women. Taken together the plays introduce readers (and we hope directors and performers) to four highly individual plays, by authors ranging from Aphra Behn, already well known as a playwright, to Margaret Cavendish and Katherine Philips, who may be better known for their non-dramatic works, to Frances Boothby, who deserves attention as the author of the first original Restoration play by a woman. Each play has been edited afresh, and each has been modernized and annotated to facilitate reading, teaching, and performance possibilities"-- Provided by publisher.
Brief description: Aphra Behn (1640-89) was the most prolific female playwright of the Restoration and the first Englishwoman to make a living as a professional writer. Best known for her 1677 comedy The Rover and for Oroonoko, her 1688 novella of Atlantic slavery, she also published lyric poetry and translations from works in Latin and French. Abdelazer, her only tragedy, draws from existing early modern treatments of stage Moors, and offers a blend of received notions about black masculinity with a portrait of besieged royalty.
Review Quotes: "This edition of four seventeenth-century plays is an excellent contribution to the ongoing scholarly discourse on women's contributions to early modern theatre in England, showing the continuities of women's involvement in dramatic writing through the seventeenth century, and helping to debunk the long-held idea that early modern women didn't write plays. Each play has been carefully selected for this collection with a clear rationale as to its importance, and when the plays are read sequentially, the generic, thematic, and characterizational connections between them are clear. Moreover, by choosing to foreground plays that were either intended for print and/or professionally staged, the editors show how the involvement of female playwrights in theatre ranged far beyond the seclusion of the "closets" in which scholars long believed them to be sequestered."-- "Alexandra Bennet, Professor of English, Northern Illinois University"