Jane Spencer's erudite and entertaining book offers an important argument about gender and influence and brings an exceptional grasp of historical nuance to Behn's works themselves and the various ways in which they were coopted by later writers in the service of a range of different agendas ... Jane Spencer's book will be a model for all later studies of gender and literary influence.

• Introduction ; PART I: REPUTATIONS ; Pleasure and Poetry: The Behn Myth ; The Novelist and the Poet ; PART II: INFLUENCES ; The Sons of Behn ; Her Wit, Without Her Shame: Women Writers after Behn ; PART III: RECEPTIONS ; The Rover ; Oroonoko ; Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Index

Jane Spencer's erudite and entertaining book offers an important argument about gender and influence and brings an exceptional grasp of historical nuance to Behn's works themselves and the various ways in which they were coopted by later writers in the service of a range of different agendas ... Jane Spencer's book will be a model for all later studies of gender and literary influence.

• Introduction ; PART I: REPUTATIONS ; Pleasure and Poetry: The Behn Myth ; The Novelist and the Poet ; PART II: INFLUENCES ; The Sons of Behn ; Her Wit, Without Her Shame: Women Writers after Behn ; PART III: RECEPTIONS ; The Rover ; Oroonoko ; Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Index