The Scandal of the Century

This is The Scandal of the Century, the true story of the author Aphra Behn, who used a shocking love affair to create the first English novel . . .

London, 1682.

When Lady Henrietta Berkeley elopes with her sister’s husband, her subsequent capture and the lawsuit that follows tears through Restoration England as the scandal of the century. But it also proves inspiration to one Aphra Behn – already condemned as a scarlet woman of loose morals – who pens a searing and outrageous bestseller based on Henrietta’s shocking affair.

The story of how and why Henrietta acted as she did, and how and why Behn came to write it becomes, in Lisa Hilton’s hands, a stunning portrait of two women attempting to smash the shackles enslaving their sex.