'This is a major contribution to recent scholarship on Aphra Behn from the foremost British authority on the history of Restoration theatre. It will recontextualise approaches to a major dramatist and will provoke lively critical debate.' - Professor Malcolm Kelsall, Cardiff University 'Dr Hughes has written a book which is at once thorough and exciting. It is ... Read morethorough in that he examines each of Aphra Behn's plays in the full context of Restoration theatre (on which few, if any, scholars are more knowledgeable) and so enables is to see her continuously interacting with political events and with the changing theatrical repertoire. It is exciting because the figure who thus emerges is far more complex than the Aphra Behn now chiefly remembered for feminist contributions to Restoration comedy; a writer of unstoppable creativity, intellectually alert and, above all, supremely aware of the nature and possibilities of theatrical presentation.' - Professor Inga-Stina Ewbank Show Less