Aphra Behn

The City Heiress Aphra Behn

Large Format for easy reading. Considered by many to be the first English professional female writer, Behn's works were unappreciated for years. She is now rightly regarded as a highly talented, innovative and prolific author. Her most famous work is a novel, Oroonoko, which tells the tragic love story of its eponymous hero, an African forced into slavery. The City Heiress is a comedy of manners which caused offence for its immorality. Though it conforms to the general rules of Restoration comedy, it also keeps Behn's own highly Royalist political point of view. The play concerns the "seditious Knight" Sir Timothy Treat-all and his nephew Tom Wilding who both vye for the affections of Charlot, the eponymous city (London) heiress.