Susanna Centlivre (c.1670–1723) was a wildly successful playwright, actress and poet. Her play The Busybody was an overnight success on the London stage, and remained one of the few comedies in the common repertoire besides Shakespeare’s until the end of the nineteenth century. Like her predecessor Aphra Behn, whose nom de plume, ‘Astrea’, Centlivre borrowed in her early years, her work fell into obscurity for much of the twentieth century, but, thanks to the work of feminist scholars, is returning to the page and stage.
