ABSTRACT
The Rover. Or, The Banish’t Cavaliers was acted on or before 24 March 1677 by the Duke’s Company at Dorset Garden with King Charles in attendance. The Rover proved to be Aphra Behn’s most popular play – if it is assumed that contemporary references are to performances of this play rather than to The Second Part of The Rover. Despite the denials of the Post-script, The Rover was based on Thomas Killigrew’s Thomaso, Or The Wanderer: A Comedy, as some people were quick to point out, and it must be classed as one of Behn’s adaptations. Killigrew’s play is one play in two parts. Behn makes of it a single play, the success of which inspired her to use formula and the source again in The Second Part of the Rover. The Rover continued to be popular after Behn’s death and was played throughout the eighteenth century going through a series of transformations to fit it to changing dramatic taste.
