What do you think?
Rate this book
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
With Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister, Aphra Behn, a leading Restoration dramatist, produced what is arguably the first long novel in English.
Her witty, racy roman a' clef in three volumes is set in the tumultuous years surrounding the death of Charles II in 1685. A heady mix of eroticism, sex and politics, it concentrates on a sensational aristocratic scandal of the day, the seduction of Henrietta Berkeley by her sister's husband Lord Grey, a notorious libertine, rebel and intimate of King Charles's son, the Duke of Monmouth.
'Love-Letters depicts the desire for erotic domination at the heart of aristocratic Restoration culture - possibly of any culture,' writes Janet Todd in her Introduction. As the novel unfolds, the innocence of Behn's young protagonist Silvia, evident in the sincerity and passion of her love-letters, is undermined; seduction is followed by disillusionment, and Silvia transforms herself into a female rake, bent on conquest rather than love. Portraying a world in which individual appetite rules and all authority is in doubt, Love-Letters brilliantly dramatizes the perverse and anarchic nature of desire.
Her witty, racy roman a' clef in three volumes is set in the tumultuous years surrounding the death of Charles II in 1685. A heady mix of eroticism, sex and politics, it concentrates on a sensational aristocratic scandal of the day, the seduction of Henrietta Berkeley by her sister's husband Lord Grey, a notorious libertine, rebel and intimate of King Charles's son, the Duke of Monmouth.
'Love-Letters depicts the desire for erotic domination at the heart of aristocratic Restoration culture - possibly of any culture,' writes Janet Todd in her Introduction. As the novel unfolds, the innocence of Behn's young protagonist Silvia, evident in the sincerity and passion of her love-letters, is undermined; seduction is followed by disillusionment, and Silvia transforms herself into a female rake, bent on conquest rather than love. Portraying a world in which individual appetite rules and all authority is in doubt, Love-Letters brilliantly dramatizes the perverse and anarchic nature of desire.
524 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1684
About the author
Aphra Behn
333 books254 followersAphra Behn, or Ayfara Behn, of the first professional women authors in English on Britain wrote plays, poetry, and her best known work, the prose fiction
Oroonoko
(1688).
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and was one of the female. Her contributed to the amatory genre of literature. People sometimes refer to Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, and her as part of "the fair triumvirate of wit."
In reckoning of Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf, more important total career of Behn produced any particular work. Woolf wrote, "All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn … for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Victoria Mary Sackville-West called Behn "an inhabitant of Grub Street with the best of them, … a phenomenon never seen and … furiously resented." Felix Shelling called her "a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature … catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations. Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man." Edmund Gosse remarked that "the George Sand of the Restoration" lived the bohemian life in London in the 17th century as Paris two centuries later.
Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and was one of the female. Her contributed to the amatory genre of literature. People sometimes refer to Delarivier Manley, Eliza Haywood, and her as part of "the fair triumvirate of wit."
In reckoning of Adeline Virginia Stephen Woolf, more important total career of Behn produced any particular work. Woolf wrote, "All women together, ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn … for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Victoria Mary Sackville-West called Behn "an inhabitant of Grub Street with the best of them, … a phenomenon never seen and … furiously resented." Felix Shelling called her "a very gifted woman, compelled to write for bread in an age in which literature … catered habitually to the lowest and most depraved of human inclinations. Her success depended upon her ability to write like a man." Edmund Gosse remarked that "the George Sand of the Restoration" lived the bohemian life in London in the 17th century as Paris two centuries later.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 15, 2017
'Since I have lost my honour, fame and friends, my interest and my parents, and all for mightier love; I'll stop at nothing now.
Behn's epistolary novel written in three parts between 1684-7 is a vast and transgressive prose piece which predates the 'first' novels of Richardson and Defoe by at least 30 years. The original story retold in Part 1 is that of a contemporary aristocratic scandal as Henrietta Berkeley is seduced by, and elopes with, her brother-in-law ('brother' in C17th nomenclature and categorisation). That Berkeley was also one of the close supporters of James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, who led a rebellion against his uncle James II in an attempt to snatch the crown after Charles II's death, adds politics to the heady mix of sex, incest and scandal.
In Sylvia (the pseudonym for Henrietta Berkeley) we witness the progression of a female rake. She moves from innocent maid to knowing and manipulative woman throughout the texts, and indicates her subversive status through cross-dressing as a boy, inciting desire in both men and women, and taking and discarding lovers at whim. Behn's own Tory convictions are thus challenged in her creation, as Sylvia learns to take life on her own terms as, to some extent, Behn did, and also has to learn how to survive in a world where her status (gender, class, sexuality) has proven to be so infirm.
Behn evolves her writing style from pure epistolary in Part 1, to narratorial interventions in Part 2, to almost all 3rd person narration in Part 3 - and, at the same time, we witness Sylvia's development from innocent sincerity in her opening letters to a sense of the manipulative potential of letters as the book progresses. To complement this kind of unpicking of literary conventions, romance tropes such as the bed-trick get deconstructed here .
The text isn't perfect: the long exposition of the Monmouth Rebellion, for example, in Part 3 lacks the transgressive thrill of the earlier storylines. Overall, though, this is a fine companion to the better known libertine literature of the period, in both political and sexual terms.
Behn's epistolary novel written in three parts between 1684-7 is a vast and transgressive prose piece which predates the 'first' novels of Richardson and Defoe by at least 30 years. The original story retold in Part 1 is that of a contemporary aristocratic scandal as Henrietta Berkeley is seduced by, and elopes with, her brother-in-law ('brother' in C17th nomenclature and categorisation). That Berkeley was also one of the close supporters of James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II's illegitimate son, who led a rebellion against his uncle James II in an attempt to snatch the crown after Charles II's death, adds politics to the heady mix of sex, incest and scandal.
In Sylvia (the pseudonym for Henrietta Berkeley) we witness the progression of a female rake. She moves from innocent maid to knowing and manipulative woman throughout the texts, and indicates her subversive status through cross-dressing as a boy, inciting desire in both men and women, and taking and discarding lovers at whim. Behn's own Tory convictions are thus challenged in her creation, as Sylvia learns to take life on her own terms as, to some extent, Behn did, and also has to learn how to survive in a world where her status (gender, class, sexuality) has proven to be so infirm.
Behn evolves her writing style from pure epistolary in Part 1, to narratorial interventions in Part 2, to almost all 3rd person narration in Part 3 - and, at the same time, we witness Sylvia's development from innocent sincerity in her opening letters to a sense of the manipulative potential of letters as the book progresses. To complement this kind of unpicking of literary conventions, romance tropes such as the bed-trick get deconstructed here .
The text isn't perfect: the long exposition of the Monmouth Rebellion, for example, in Part 3 lacks the transgressive thrill of the earlier storylines. Overall, though, this is a fine companion to the better known libertine literature of the period, in both political and sexual terms.
October 13, 2017
I think, like a lot of people, I associate pre-19th century literature with boring and dry reads. That doesn't necessarily mean bad, and I have read exceptions to this, but that's what I expect from a book written in the late 1600s. Boy, was I ever wrong with this book. It is one of the most buckwild things I've ever read. I didn't see any of the plot twists coming, and though in retrospect they're perhaps not as wild as they felt at the time, I gasped far too often while reading it. Of all things, I did not expect this to be a page turner, but it was. And I felt so strongly about the characters! Sylvia is THE problematic fave and Philander is the biggest fuckboy I've ever seen in my life. Clearly, all I needed to reassess my opinion of the long 18th century literature was to read Aphra Behn.
I knocked one star off just because I could absolutely care less about the politics in the book. I know it's such a crucial part of understanding the novel, and I completely appreciate how well it's done here, but I've never been able to make myself care about political stuff. Especially towards the end of the novel, my eyes completely glossed over the words anytime Cesario was mentioned.
Despite my own failings with that, I am so pleasantly surprised by this work!
I knocked one star off just because I could absolutely care less about the politics in the book. I know it's such a crucial part of understanding the novel, and I completely appreciate how well it's done here, but I've never been able to make myself care about political stuff. Especially towards the end of the novel, my eyes completely glossed over the words anytime Cesario was mentioned.
Despite my own failings with that, I am so pleasantly surprised by this work!
October 17, 2012
Watch as Aphra throws the epistolary novel out the window and invents the modern novel in the second half.
Eat that, Samuel Richardson.
Eat that, Samuel Richardson.
July 10, 2018
Aphra Behn you saucy queen, thank you for satisfying my endless need for drama while still allowing myself to feel like an intellectual.
August 1, 2008
Twelve love-letters before secret rendezvous may lead to impotence.
August 15, 2018
I really enjoyed this 17th century roman à clef which may have inspired Les Liaisons Dangereuses a century later, one of my all-time favourite classic novels with people behaving very badly indeed. The political bits inspired by true life events toward the end kind of bored me, but I might read what is known as the first English novel again eventually just for the horrid characters who play with romance and each other mercilessly—Aphra Behn obviously delighted in creating these despicable characters and it shows.
At the heart of the story is the real-life incestuous romance between Lord Grey, here known as Philander, and his wife's younger sister, known in the novel as Sylvia. He manages to seduce her with a series of outrageously romantic letters (part I is exclusively in epistolary form), and when their romance is discovered, they flee to Holland, with Sylvia pregnant with Philander's child. A clue to Philander's further conduct might be that the word 'philanderer', meaning "a man who readily or frequently enters into casual sexual relationships with women; a womanizer", apparently came to us from this book's character. In real life, there was a court case and a great scandal broke out, so that Behn was forced to transpose the events to France, especially since Lord Grey was involved in further political plots, by backing the Duke of Monmouth in his attempt to overthrow James II. Philander is a despicable character in the book which we come to delight in hating, and we can only guess that he was just as detestable in real life, but it seems he had a great knack for knowing when the tides were about to change and aligning himself with the right powers, so that he always managed to remain in favour and retained great wealth and powers, eventually becoming Lord Justice of the Realm. In the book, he succeeds in turning Sylvia, at first an innocent 17 year-old maiden, into a rapacious money-grubbing female equivalent who goes on to seduce and ruin one rich and beautiful man after another, which I suppose Aphra Behn, a feminist in her time, saw as a victory of sorts for women in those days, considering the few options open to them.
At the heart of the story is the real-life incestuous romance between Lord Grey, here known as Philander, and his wife's younger sister, known in the novel as Sylvia. He manages to seduce her with a series of outrageously romantic letters (part I is exclusively in epistolary form), and when their romance is discovered, they flee to Holland, with Sylvia pregnant with Philander's child. A clue to Philander's further conduct might be that the word 'philanderer', meaning "a man who readily or frequently enters into casual sexual relationships with women; a womanizer", apparently came to us from this book's character. In real life, there was a court case and a great scandal broke out, so that Behn was forced to transpose the events to France, especially since Lord Grey was involved in further political plots, by backing the Duke of Monmouth in his attempt to overthrow James II. Philander is a despicable character in the book which we come to delight in hating, and we can only guess that he was just as detestable in real life, but it seems he had a great knack for knowing when the tides were about to change and aligning himself with the right powers, so that he always managed to remain in favour and retained great wealth and powers, eventually becoming Lord Justice of the Realm. In the book, he succeeds in turning Sylvia, at first an innocent 17 year-old maiden, into a rapacious money-grubbing female equivalent who goes on to seduce and ruin one rich and beautiful man after another, which I suppose Aphra Behn, a feminist in her time, saw as a victory of sorts for women in those days, considering the few options open to them.
September 25, 2017
The language ranges from elevated to saucy, and the twists and turns are clever, as one would expect from Aphra Behn. But this is a long, sad, and sordid tale that ends badly for everyone involved. The book is most interesting from a historical perspective, in that it may be - scholars debate this point - the first published English novel, made more piquant by virtue of the fact that it was written by a notorious female playwright.
In fact, the tortuously drawn-out love affairs of the ostensible two main characters, whose relations become increasingly toxic to each other and everyone around them, functions as an elaborate backdrop to the real story. This is a thinly disguised semi-historical account of a seeming secondary character, Prince Cesario, who is based on a historical personage, the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, bastard son of King Charles II of England. It is only at the tail-end of the third part of the Love Letters that "Cesario" (Monmouth) takes center stage, and his story is told - somewhat elaborately, and wit a fair amount of stagecraft, as befits a playwright-cum-novelist.
Not really to my taste, and probably not to the taste of contemporary readers, whose sensibilities are far removed from Aphra Behn's original 16th century audience. But interesting nonetheless for anyone wanting to test the literary-historical waters of a different time and place.
In fact, the tortuously drawn-out love affairs of the ostensible two main characters, whose relations become increasingly toxic to each other and everyone around them, functions as an elaborate backdrop to the real story. This is a thinly disguised semi-historical account of a seeming secondary character, Prince Cesario, who is based on a historical personage, the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, bastard son of King Charles II of England. It is only at the tail-end of the third part of the Love Letters that "Cesario" (Monmouth) takes center stage, and his story is told - somewhat elaborately, and wit a fair amount of stagecraft, as befits a playwright-cum-novelist.
Not really to my taste, and probably not to the taste of contemporary readers, whose sensibilities are far removed from Aphra Behn's original 16th century audience. But interesting nonetheless for anyone wanting to test the literary-historical waters of a different time and place.
June 11, 2013
pure cracktastic awesome
December 10, 2025
What even was this book?
All it was about was just love (I mean, no duh look at the title). However, this was just PAINFULLY slow. It took me a whole month to finish it.
every affair in this book started and ended the same. There was just too much yearning. It might just be because I'm some sort of on-and-off asexual, but besides everything, I hate this book. I know this was written in the 1680s, but I wish Behn or whoever wrote this book added, like, at least 7 or more paragraphs in each page. There were too many run-on sentences, and I had to read every line of text in my head to the tune of Safe Skin by Patricia Taxxon just to get through it faster.
And I don't mind spoiling aspects of this book without hiding it for spoilers. Philander makes Stockholm syndrome feel like a punishment. I wish Sylvia stayed with either Brilliard or Octavio tbh...
At least there was a guy named Fergusano who did black magic which I'm adding a star for. If I remember correctly, he was trying to help Mademoiselle Hermione in some way.
There were also some throwaway characters that got mentioned a few times or less and that was it. There was Melinda, Dormina, Dorinda, Dorillus, Myrtilla, Tomaso, Mademoiselle Mariana, and Don Alonzo. Mariana was mentioned like 3 or 4 times and that was it.
2/5 stars, would never recommend. Let people find this on their own.
All it was about was just love (I mean, no duh look at the title). However, this was just PAINFULLY slow. It took me a whole month to finish it.
every affair in this book started and ended the same. There was just too much yearning. It might just be because I'm some sort of on-and-off asexual, but besides everything, I hate this book. I know this was written in the 1680s, but I wish Behn or whoever wrote this book added, like, at least 7 or more paragraphs in each page. There were too many run-on sentences, and I had to read every line of text in my head to the tune of Safe Skin by Patricia Taxxon just to get through it faster.
And I don't mind spoiling aspects of this book without hiding it for spoilers. Philander makes Stockholm syndrome feel like a punishment. I wish Sylvia stayed with either Brilliard or Octavio tbh...
At least there was a guy named Fergusano who did black magic which I'm adding a star for. If I remember correctly, he was trying to help Mademoiselle Hermione in some way.
There were also some throwaway characters that got mentioned a few times or less and that was it. There was Melinda, Dormina, Dorinda, Dorillus, Myrtilla, Tomaso, Mademoiselle Mariana, and Don Alonzo. Mariana was mentioned like 3 or 4 times and that was it.
2/5 stars, would never recommend. Let people find this on their own.
October 8, 2021
I think this was a very interesting novel. First, I really loved the narrative structure, especially with the epistolary novel. I seem to really love epistolary novels. I also really like the overall arc of this novel and what happened within the story and how the events unfolded. I read this particular novel for my queering the restoration class. And I think the literature from this period in time is really interesting just in how wild and outrageous it is. Especially with how quickly Sylvia's narrative changed and how drastically the events of the story changed. I also really like this because of the fact that it is based quite a bit on true events that happened during the restoration period. It really intrigues me that these incredibly wild behaviors and events happened in high class restoration England. I think this novel's exploration of female sexuality and liberty is really interesting and both a tale of awe and warning for young women during the time. I think it is really interesting how Sylvia evolved from the beginning of the novel being this incredibly innocent young girl who has no authority or agency in her life to a young woman who has complete liberty over her life and is essentially in ruins by the end.
I really enjoyed Aphra Behn's writing and execution of this plot. I would enjoy possibly reading more from her in the future.
I really enjoyed Aphra Behn's writing and execution of this plot. I would enjoy possibly reading more from her in the future.
May 17, 2026
Part 1 is brilliant. Ironic. Deliberately, hilariously exaggerated. Especially when the would-be playboy finally beds the virgin and has a premature ejaculation, much to her dismay.
After that it flattens -- less witty and often told in straight third person narration, rather than as perceived by this character, then that in letters.
Part 3 is simply boring.
After that it flattens -- less witty and often told in straight third person narration, rather than as perceived by this character, then that in letters.
Part 3 is simply boring.
July 17, 2019
Not good enough to make up for the gross way they refer to each other as siblings, constantly, even though they are only related through marriage.
Read
May 6, 2021Used for prompt 6 - A Character with the Same Name as a Male Family Member
Philander
Philander
September 29, 2023
*3.75 ⭐️ the boring ending brought it down for me 😢
July 10, 2007
must have been written mid-1600s. horrible, i tried and tried but couldn't finish. dull. unimaginative. they wrote almost a dozen letters in the span of a couple hours as they prepared to see each other- and these letters were pages long each. the sentences were simply too long to be palatable. ugh.
November 7, 2013
See my review above, but only read this for quirky value.
Read
April 15, 20221684, 1685, 1687 - first English novel
first novel to expose the complex play that the genre [epistolary novel] allows
first novel to expose the complex play that the genre [epistolary novel] allows
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews