ABSTRACT
The Young King: Or, The Mistake was first performed in 1679. A reference at the end of the printed text to the Duke of York’s exile in Flanders indicates a performance between March and August, while a comic allusion in the prologue puts it after June. Despite its date of staging, A. Behn declared the play the ‘first Essay of my Infant-Poetry’, which suggests she wrote it in the early 1660s. Behn keeps most of the characters while changing their names: so Honorius is based on Barzanes, Ismenes on Euardes, Artabazes on Phrataphernes and Semiris on Beliza. The Young King does not seem to have been a great success when staged in 1679 and Behn did not rush it into print. It was published only in 1683 when it was dedicated to ‘Philaster’, a man who guards his identity.
