Aphra Behn: Portraiture and The Biographical Account

Abstract Scant biographical detail is known about the life of England’s first professional woman writer, Aphra Behn (d.1689), which makes it strange that scholars have shown little interest in surviving portraits her. This article provides comprehensive survey contemporaneous portraiture Behn, outlining provenance these works and summarizing their various claims to authenticity. In doing so, highlights how visual documents Behn’s contradict dominant scholarly view as a struggling writer who lived hand-to-mouth existence. herself endorsed one her portraits, using promote most significant publication up point, Poems upon Several Occasions (1684). portrait neatly reflects vision projected through biographies were circulated wake death. By drawing on own ideas function we can begin account for contradictions between two very different visions Behn: author stressed skills overcame restrictions gender; romantic heroine promoted an image feminine beauty gentility.