First published in England in 1748, ’The Memoirs of Fanny Hill’ (also known as ’
Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure’) is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland.
’The Memoirs of Fanny Hill’ chronicles the life of a London prostitute, describing with scatological and clinical precision many varieties of sexual behaviour. Although elegantly written, the novel was condemned as pornography and was suppressed from its initial publication, almost never being mentioned in literary circles. It was kept in print surreptitiously, however, and for almost two centuries the novel enjoyed a salacious reputation. The book was not published legally until 1963 in the United States and 1970 in England.