Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) is an erotic novel and early work of pornography by English author John Cleland. Written while Cleland was in prison, the novel was both successful and controversial, banned from publication but widely distributed in pirated and heavily edited copies. Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure was the subject of numerous court cases, including a prominent United States Supreme Court decision in 1966 which found that the book did not violate obscenity laws.
Using extensive euphemism, Cleland’s novel is the story of Frances “Fanny” Hill. Narrated in two letters to a friend known only as “Madam, ” the book traces Fanny’s early life as an orphan-turned-prostitute. After the death of her parents from smallpox, Fanny moves from Lancashire to London to work at a brothel, where she witnesses and participates in numerous sexual acts with women and men of all ages. When her lover Charles is sent abroad, Fanny becomes the mistress of a wealthy merchant who later abandons her. While earning a living working for wealthy clients in a high-end brothel, Fanny witnesses wilder and increasingly dangerous sexual encounters, eventually retiring to a life as the lover of an older intellectual. Recognized as an early and controversial pornographic novel, Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is important for its groundbreaking depictions of queer sex and fetish and continues to be read and studied to this day.
This edition of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is a classic of pornographic and erotic literature reimagined for modern readers.
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About the author
John Cleland (1709-1789) was an English novelist. Born in Surrey, he was raised in London. His father William Cleland was a military officer and civil servant who, along with his wife Lucy, was a friend of such literary and political figures as Alexander Pope, Viscount Bolingbroke, and Horace Walpole. Cleland attended Westminster School for several years before being expelled for unknown reasons. He joined the British East India Company, traveling to Bombay in 1728 where he worked as a civil servant and lived until 1740. Upon his return to London, he was shunned by his family, and attempted to kickstart the Portuguese East India Company before being arrested for a significant unpaid debt. In Fleet Prison, Cleland wrote Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, an early pornographic novel which was published in two parts and 1748 and 1749, earning him a second arrest upon his release. Despite being barred from legal publication for over one hundred years, illegal and heavily edited copies of the book sold well during Cleland’s lifetime, earning him plenty of infamy without enabling him to profit off his work. Cleland continued to write and publish comedic and satirical works throughout his life, and is remembered today as a controversial figure whose work pushed the boundaries of taste, decency, and legality in a time of extreme conservatism.
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