John Cleland 
Fanny Hill (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.


 

Fanny Hill, also known as
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, has been a notorious novel since it first appeared in London in 1748-9. Banned for its ‘obscene’ content, this fictional account of a young woman’s unconventional route to middle-class respectability is, in fact, a lively and engaging comic romp through the boudoirs and brothels of Augustan England, with a heroine whose adventures and setbacks never lessen her humanity or her determination to find real love and happiness. Fanny’s story offers modern readers sensuality and substance, as well as an unusually frank depiction of love and sex in the eighteenth century.

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Born in Surrey in 1710, John Cleland rushed the completion of
Fanny Hill to escape debt. The subsequent obscenity lawsuits landed Cleland in serious legal trouble, but the novel’s notoriety generated demand from curious readers, and Cleland eventually authored a heavily revised, expurgated edition of the book in an effort to produce additional income while avoiding further legal actions. He died in Westminster in 1789.