Oroonoko

Oroonoko is a short novel (or novella) by Aphra Behn (July 1640 – April 16, 1689), published in 1688, concerning the tragic love of its hero, an enslaved African in "Suriname" in the 1660's and the author's own experiences with the new American colony. It is generally claimed (most famously by Virginia Woolf) that Aphra Behn was the first professional female author in English. While this is not entirely true, it is true that Behn was the first professional female dramatist and novelist, as well as one of the first novelists in English. Although she had written at least one novel previously, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko is both one of the earliest English novels and one of the earliest by a woman.

References

• An Exact Relation of The Most Execrable Attempts of John Allin, Committed on the Person of His Excellency Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham. . . . 1665, quoted in Todd.
• Bernbaum, Ernest, "Mrs. Behn's 'Oroonoko'" in George Lyman Kittredge Papers. Boston: 1913, pp. 419-433.
• Dhuiq, Bernard, "Additional Notes on Oroonoko" Notes & Queries 1979, pp. 524-526.
• Macdonald, Joyce Green, "Race, Women, and the Sentimental in Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko", Criticism, 40 (1998).
• Moulton, Charles Wells, ed. The Library of Literary Criticism. vol. II 1639-1729. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1959.
• Porter, Roy. The Creation of the Modern World. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. ISBN 0-393-32268-8
• Ramsaran, J. A., "Notes on Oroonoko" Notes & Queries 1960, p. 144.
• Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. London: Pandora Press, 2000.
• Behn, Aphra. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 19, 2005