Rover (Part I); or, The Banish'd Cavaliers 1
The Rover (Part II); or, The Banish'd Cavaliers 109
The Dutch Lover 215
The Roundheads; or, The Good Old Cause 331
Notes 427

PREFACE.

It is perhaps not altogether easy to appreciate the multiplicity of
difficulties with which the first editor of Mrs. Behn has to cope. Not
only is her life strangely mysterious and obscure, but the rubbish of
half-a-dozen romancing biographers must needs be cleared away before we
can even begin to see daylight. Matter which had been for two centuries
accepted on seemingly the soundest authority is proven false; her family
name itself was, until my recent discovery, wrongly given; the very
question of her portrait has its own vexed (and until now unrecognized)
dilemmas. In fine there seems no point connected with our first
professional authoress which did not call for the nicest investigation
and the most incontrovertible proof before it could be accepted without
suspicion or reserve. The various collections of her plays and novels
which appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century give us
nothing; nay, they rather cumber our path with the trash of discredited
_Memoirs_. Pearson's reprint (1871) is entirely valueless: there is no
attempt, however meagre, at editing, no effort to elucidate a single
allusion; moreover, several of the Novels-- and the Poems in their
entirety-- are lacking. I am happy to give (Vol. V) one of the Novels,
and that not the least important, _The History of the Nun_, for the
first time in any collected edition. Poems, in addition to those which
appeared in Mrs. Behn's lifetime, and were never reprinted after, have
been gathered with great care from many sources (of which some were
almost forgotten).

It is hoped that this new issue of Mrs. Behn may prove adequate. Any
difficulties in the editing have been more than amply compensated for by
the interest shown by many friends. Foremost, my best thanks are due to
Mr. Bullen, whose life-long experience of the minutiae of editing our
best dramatic literature, has been ungrudgingly at my service
throughout, to the no small advantage of myself and my work. Mr. Edmund
Gosse, C.B., has shown the liveliest interest in the book from its
inception, and I owe him most grateful recognition for his kindly
encouragement and aid. Nay, more,