Aphra Behn wrote and staged five plays before producing The Rover on March 24, 1677. Her reputation as a woman of letters was established enough for her to be included in a published list of playwrights called Theatrum Poetarum, compiled by her contemporary Edward Phillips. Despite her reputation, Behn published The Rover anonymously, perhaps because her play was an adaptation of another contemporary playwright, Thomas Killigrew. Behn had condensed his ten-act drama and turned it into a comedy, but as a woman writer, she was especially vulnerable to charges of plagiarism. It was not until the third issue of the printed play that she dared to include her name as its author. She did, however, append to her next anonymously published comedy the phrase "the Author of the Rover."

The Rover was an immediate success and a constant favorite in major theaters for the next sixty years. Charles...