But the initials A.B. at the end of the _Letter_ in the first part may be a clue, though a perplexing one. It is a plausible guess that they are those of Aphra or Aphara Behn, the dramatist and poet, the first woman to earn her living by her pen. It is true that she was, so to speak, a feminist: the preface and epilogue to her _Sir Patient Fancy_ speak bitterly of those who would not go to her plays because they were by a woman. On the other hand, she had a free pen, to say the least of it, and often a witty one. And she had Dutch associations. Her husband was a Dutch merchant living in London. She had herself been on secret service in the Netherlands. She translated a Dutch book on oracles. If the book was printed in Holland, she of all people could get the work done. And she knew the city of London intimately. There are, too, some odd details in her plays, especially in _Sir Patient Fancy_, which recall touches in _The Ten Pleasures_. She introduces a Padua doctor on the stage. She shows, in several of her plays, a curious interest in medicine, especially quack medicine. Sir Patient, a hypochondriac, thinks he is swelling up like the "pipsy" husband. Isabella, in the same play, says "keeping begins to be as ridiculous as matrimony.... The insolence and expense of their mistresses has almost tired out all but the old and doting part of mankind." It is not inconceivable that in a freakish or embittered moment this singular woman threw herself with malicious joy into an attack on her own sex. "Love in fantastic triumph sat...." Aphra Behn's great lyric deservedly lives. If she wrote _The Ten Pleasures_, the sort of love she describes in it still lives, but hardly in fantastic triumph. Yet if we want to know our fellow-men, we must know something of it. Apart from the curious interest of its rarity, _The Ten Pleasures_ is a sturdy piece of human nature. JOHN HARVEY. * * * * * PUBLISHER'S PREFACE "Of the making of many books there is no end," nor is there an end to the Romance of books, as the little volume here, privately reprinted by the Navarre Society, is surely proof most positive. The original is a small thick volume; it bears the imprint "London, Printed in the year 1683," and but one perfect copy is known; that copy lay unappreciated in the heart of London in an antiquarian bookseller's shop. Fortunately, however, for our literature and for students of the manners of the commonality of the period it was seen by a colleague, who wondered why he did not know it. After purchasing it he found the reason why--the Bodleian Library alone possessed a copy of the work (imperfect); later a copy of the first part (only) appeared in the last portion of the sale of the great Huth Collection. The present text is taken from the perfect copy mentioned above.