John Cleland

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, commonly known as Fanny Hill, has been shrouded in mystery and controversy since John Cleland completed it in 1749. The Bishop of London called the work 'an open insult upon Religion and good manners' and James Boswell referred to it as 'a most licentious and inflaming book'. The story of a prostitute's rise to respectability, it has been recognized more recently as a unique combination of parody, sensual entertainment and a philosophical concept of sexuality borrowed from French libertine novels. Modern readers will appreciate it not only as an important contribution to revolutionary thought in the Age of Enlightenment, but also as a thoroughly entertaining and important work of erotic fiction, deserving of a place in the history of the English novel beside Richardson, Fielding and Smollett.

Fanny Hill, Or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Peter Wagner

Or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Penguin Classics)

Fanny Hill

One of the most prosecuted and banned books in history. * * * The classic novel of a young girl's exploration of physical pleasures. Young Fanny Hill is tricked into a life of prostitution, but she quickly learns the power of her own body as she learns the ways of physical passion. She soon escapes her fate for the loving arms of a wealthy young man, but misadventure and fate conspire to keep her from domestic bliss. Instead, Fanny discovers that sex need not be just for love; that it can be had for pleasure. She then sets out to explore those pleasures in as wide a variety as she can. With old men and young, and women as well; in positions of power, and situations where she has none; either watching or participating, Fanny's journey through the realms of sexual pleasure is a literary tour-de-force. Presented with classically bawdy illustrations from fin-de-siecle French artist Paul Avril, and an introduction placing the work in historical context, this complete, unexpurgated edition is the ultimate presentation of the original erotic novel.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Мемоарите на една лека жена

"One of the most prosecuted and banned books in history." * * * The classic novel of a young girl's exploration of physical pleasures. Young Fanny Hill is tricked into a life of prostitution, but she quickly learns the power of her own body as she learns the ways of physical passion. She soon escapes her fate for the loving arms of a wealthy young man, but misadventure and fate conspire to keep her from domestic bliss. Instead, Fanny discovers that sex need not be just for love; that it can be had for pleasure. She then sets out to explore those pleasures in as wide a variety as she can. With old men and young, and women as well; in positions of power, and situations where she has none; either watching or participating, Fanny's journey through the realms of sexual pleasure is a literary tour-de-force. Presented with classically bawdy illustrations from fin-de-siecle French artist Paul Avril, and an introduction placing the work in historical context, this complete, unexpurgated edition is the ultimate presentation of the original erotic novel.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Fanny Hill

Anonymous

D. H. Lawrence

Daniel Defoe

Marquis de Sade

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Michel Millot

Jack Saul

Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros (passionate, romantic or sexual relationships) intended to arouse similar feelings in readers.This contrasts erotica, which focuses more specifically on sexual feelings. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. Much erotic literature features erotic art, illustrating the text. Although cultural disapproval of erotic literature has always existed, its circulation was not seen as a major problem before the invention of printing, as the costs of producing individual manuscripts limited distribution to a very small group of wealthy and literate readers. The invention of printing, in the 15th century, brought with it both a greater market and increasing restrictions, including censorship and legal restraints on publication on the grounds of obscenity. Because of this, much of the production of this type of material became clandestine. Michel Millot. The School of Venus John Cleland. Fanny Hill Daniel Defoe. Moll Flanders Marquis de Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom D. H. Lawrence. Lady Chatterley's Lover Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Venus in Furs Anonymous. The Lustful Turk Anonymous. The Romance of Lust Anonymous. Autobiography of a Flea Anonymous. The Way of a Man with a Maid Anonymous. The Nunnery Tales Jack Saul. The Sins of the Cities of the Plain

Fanny Hill, The 120 Days of Sodom, Venus in Furs, Autobiography of a Flea, The Romance of Lust, The Nunnery Tales and others

12 Masterpieces of Erotic literature. Illustrated edition

Exhibiting a Great Variety of Scenes in High and Low Life ...

The Midnight Spy, Or, A View of the Transactions of London and Westminster from the Hours of Ten in the Evening, Till Five in the Morning

The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

The Memoirs of Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint situations such as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of decency that were never made for such unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too much sense, too much knowledge of the ORIGINALS themselves, to sniff prudishly and out of character at the PICTURES of them. The greatest men, those of the first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets with nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not think them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal history. My maiden name was Frances Hill. I was born at a small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents extremely poor, and, I piously believe, extremely honest.My father, who had received a maim on his limbs that disabled him from following the more laborious branches of country-drudgery, got, by making of nets, a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarg'd by my mother's keeping a little day-school for the girls in her neighbourhood. They had had several children; but none lived to any age except myself, who had received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy.My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar; reading, or rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary plain work composed the whole system of it; and then all my foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity general to our sex, in the tender stage of life when objects alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything else. But then, this is a fear too often cured at the expence of innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a creature of prey that will eat her.My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her scholars and her little domestic cares, that she had spared very little of it to my instruction, having, from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or thought of guarding me against any.I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of ills befell me in the loss of my tender fond parents, who were both carried off by the small-pox, within a few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby hastening the death of my mother; so that I was now left an unhappy friendless orphan (for my father's coming to settle there was accidental, he being originally a Kentishman). That cruel distemper which had proved so fatal to them, had indeed seized me, but with such mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of danger, and, what I then did not know the value of, was entirely unmark'd. I skip over here an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt on this melancholy occasion. A little time, and the giddiness of that age dissipated, too soon, my reflections on that irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that were immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice from one Esther Davis, a young woman that had been down to see her friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was to return to her place.As I had now nobody left alive in the village who had concern enough about what should become of me to start any objections to this scheme, and the woman who took care of me after my parents; death rather encouraged me to pursue it, I soon came to a resolution of making this launch into the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to SEEK MY FORTUNE, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever it made or advanced.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - Beyond World's Classics

Memoirs of a Coxcomb

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure ; Foreword by H. Montgomery Hyde

The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Or, The Life of Fanny Hill

Classic Erotica. The Memoirs of Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland. A new and genuine edition from the original text (London, 1749). Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill, an anglicisation of the Latin mons veneris, mound of Venus) is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel". It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history. The novel was published in two instalments, on 21 November 1748 and in February 1749, by Fenton Griffiths and his brother Ralph under the name "G. Fenton". There has been speculation that the novel was at least partly written by 1740, when Cleland was stationed in Bombay as a servant of the British East India Company. Initially, there was no governmental reaction to the novel. However, in November 1749, a year after the first instalment was published, Cleland and Ralph Griffiths were arrested and charged with "corrupting the King's subjects." In court, Cleland renounced the novel and it was officially withdrawn.

Classic Erotica

The Memoirs of Fanny Hill

Support Public Domain: like and share http://facebook.com/BookLiberationFrontCleland's classic novel "Memoirs" is a worthwhile read - for several reasons. It's entertaining, very often humorous and by today's standards, employs the English language in a most charming way. And when you consider Cleland was in prison when he wrote it, you cannot help but appreciate the author's efforts.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - Unabridged Edition

The Memoirs of Fanny Hill John Cleland - The Memoirs of Fanny Hill by John Cleland was originally published in 1748. It is an erotic novel, and is considered the first pornographic novel to be published. It is written in the form of two long letters by Frances 'Fanny' Hill, to a woman known only as 'Madam'. Whilst Frances is now married with children and living a happy and luxurious existence, the letters recount the earlier, more scandalous stages of her life. Starting with a poor childhood, the letters tell of how, after her parents died, she went to London and ended up working in a brothel. There she meets her current husband Charles, who encouraged her to leave this lifestyle - after becoming lovers, Charles was sent away overseas for a while during which time Frances went on to have several lovers. Eventually they reunite.A year after the first installment had been published, Cleland and his publisher were arrested and charged with 'corrupting the King's subjects'. Interestingly enough, Cleland had finished The Memoirs of Fanny Hill whilst in prison for debt. When the case of corruption went to court, Cleland renounced the book, claiming that he could only 'wish from his soul that the book be buried and forgot'.

John Cleland

About

Books

Join the club