Sir Patient Fancy

by Aphra Behn

Sir Patient Fancy is a play written by Aphra Behn, first performed in 1678. The play is a comedy of manners that satirizes the upper class society of Restoration England. The story revolves around the character of Sir Patient Fancy, an elderly man who has become obsessed with his own health and the idea of prolonging his life. He is constantly attended to by a group of doctors and nurses, who are more interested in his money than his well-being. Meanwhile, his young wife Lady Knowell is carrying on an affair with a younger man, and his daughter Isabella is in love with a man who is not of her social class. As the plot unfolds, the characters engage in a series of deceptions and misunderstandings that ultimately lead to a happy resolution. Along the way, Behn explores themes of love, class, and gender roles in a society that is undergoing significant change. Sir Patient Fancy is considered one of Behn's most successful plays and is still performed today as a classic of Restoration comedy.Sir Pat. How! her whole Family! I am come to keep open House; very fine, her whole Family! she's Plague enough to mortify any good Christian, --tell her, my Lady and I am gon forth; tell her any thing to keep her away.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work

Genres: Drama

Paperback

First published January 1, 1678

About the author

Aphra 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.