ABSTRACT
The City-Heiress was published in 1682 and dedicated to Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel, and later Duke of Norfolk, to whom Behn referred as her Maecenas or patron in her Coronation Ode for James II in 1685. With The False Count and The Roundheads, The City-Heiress: Or, Sir Timothy Treat-all formed part of a run of political plays which Aphra Behn staged within some months of each other from 1681 to 1682. The City-Heiress also called on a darker play than The Guardian, A Mad World, My Masters by Thomas Middleton. Where Durazzo and Caldoro beget the Meriwills, uncle and nephew, Middleton’s Dick Folly-Wit and Sir Bounteous beget Wilding and Sir Timothy Treat-all. The success on the stage of The Roundheads and The City-Heiress prompted an attack in 1682 by the rival Whig playwright Thomas Shadwell, while with The Emperor of the Moon it was denigrated by Robert Gould in The Play-house.
