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The Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
The Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
The Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
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The Memoirs Of Fanny Hill

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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This infamous novel details the many sexual adventures of the fictional maid-turned-prostitute, Fanny Hill, whose name has become synonymous with scandal and obscenity. Written while author John Cleland was in debtor’s prison, The Memoirs of Fanny Hill is considered the first English example of a pornographic novel.

The Memoirs of Fanny Hill was banned soon after publication in 1748, but was so widely pirated that it remained available until it was finally re-released 1960. However, after distributing more than 80,000 copies of the book, the publisher was forced to end production when it was charged under the Obscenity Act. The Memoirs of Fanny Hill was finally published without legal repercussions in 1970.

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LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMay 21, 2013
ISBN9781443426114
The Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
Author

John Cleland

John Cleland (1709–1789) was an English novelist who gained notoriety primarily through the publication of Fanny Hill, a classic of erotic literature. After working with the British East India Company as a young man, Cleland was thrown into debtor’s prison in 1748, and it was from a jail cell that he penned Fanny Hill. He and his publisher were soon arrested again for the publication of the book on grounds of obscenity. Later in life, Cleland continued to write novels and plays, though never achieving the fame earned from his debut novel.

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Rating: 3.178362669785575 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This classic erotic work distinguishes itself from its peers in some ways. Its use of euphemism completely avoids any 'rude' words, though it describes a number of pornographic scenes in detail. Although written by a man, Fanny seems a genuine character, and the scenes she describes follow each other logically instead of the combinatorial excess found in other pornographic works. Fanny also has definite sexual preferences although she is not averse to experimentation. As a 'mistress of pleasure' she was a relatively lucky one with a minimum of bad experiences. Finally, and this is where the book really diverges from the norm, she finds love and even promotes love as more important than (or at least as important as) sexual gratification.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Gorgeous language; for all its transparent euphemisms, total porn. Love it, though Cleland really does not need to use the word "vermillion" quite so much.Also Fanny is a bit close-minded about certain things, which the afterword in this edition describes as "the more outlandish practices [...] such as sodomy, lesbianism and flagellation". For the latter two cases it notes Fanny describing the tastes of Phoebe and Mr Barvile as "arbitrary" and "unaccountable" (though she participates with both without regretting it). This much suits said afterward's thematic discourse very well, so it promptly forgets to mention that she describes the instance of sodomy she witnesses as "odious" and "criminal". She'd even dob in the people involved if she didn't trip over herself in her haste and half knock herself out; and when she tells Mrs Cole about it, the latter says a good deal nastier.I would dearly love to see some fanfic in which Charles discovers her memoir and, having had his own experiences while at sea, educates her (through explanation, narration, and some pleasant demonstration or two) about the wonders of the masculine "seat of pleasure"....
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well, it's a classic, isn't it? The eroticism is a bit tame by modern standards but it's an interesting read, and must have been explosive in its own time.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    must have been the fifty shades of it's day... too much in the way of silly euphemisms for me, and the sheer silliness of finding Charles again in a tavern - a coincidence a little too far..
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Memoirs Of Fanny Hill has been called the first pornographic book and it is one of the most banned books ever. I stumbled upon Memoirs Of Fanny Hill on my iTouch Classic Books app. Would I consider it a classic? I'd consider it classic porn, which is a genre I've never read. The story is written in two parts. In the first part of the story we get to know Frances Hill and how she became a prostitute at a young age. She was born to a poor family in Liverpool. At age fifteen, both her parents died of smallpox. She was brought to London by a family friend and is abandoned there. Fanny is looking to work as a housemaid and stumbles unknowingly upon a whorehouse run by a Mrs. Brown who takes Fanny in and tells her her 'maidenhead' will fetch a good price. Fanny continues to live the life of a prostitute, but as time passes, she becomes smarter. In the second half of the story we see a more experienced Fanny. By the end of the story, she is nineteen years old. Throughout the book she recollects her many lovers and sexual encounters. There is plenty of sex in the plot. Same sex partners, light bondage and lashings, to a full-on orgy are all in the storyline. Voyeurism was a sort of past-time for a few of the characters in this story, they always seemed to find a peep-hole available. It's all very scandalous and shocking, especially considering this book was written in 1749. (way before my beloved Pride & Prejudice) This was a spicy read, even by today's standards. I'm surprised that he wrote the story without any outright vile language. I found the writing to be well done. John Cleland would definitely give some erotic fiction writers a run for their money. However, I did laugh at some of the word use. The author uses the funniest names while referring to the male form. The engine of love assaults, enormous machine, IT, staff of love and object of terror and delight, just to name a few. He describes female pubic hair as the richest sable fur in the universe. I'm sorry, but I laughed out loud while reading that!All in all, this was an unexpected read for me and I enjoyed it enough to keep reading. I finished it in two sittings. It was bawdy and scandalous and I did wonder what would become of Fanny. I read that author John Cleland and the publishers and printer of Fanny Hill were arrested shortly after publication. The novel of course, continued to sell in pirated forms. Sex does sell, no matter what century we're in.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    How extraordinary that a man thinks himself capable of writing an erotic novel from a woman's viewpoint. It's highly unlikely that Fanny considered her deflowering and professional life to be the mere larks that Cleland made them out to be. Pure fantasy and a man's fantasy at that.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    be warned, this book, written in 1749, & having for at least 200 years been banned before it was ever allowed to be seen on these shores, is a classic example of 18th century erotica. it tells the story of Fanny, & young country girl, who loses her parents to an illness, probably smallpox, & ends up traveling with a young woman of better means to London, where is she is abandoned a second time, & falls in with a madam. She has a series of adventures, but never loses her heart to any other man but her beloved Charles, who was lost to her when his father sent him on an ocean voyage to recover a fortune. Because most of you will never read this or even want to read it due to the content, Fanny eventually makes her way in the world, becomes a respectable woman, & through sheer chance, finds her beloved Charles in a driving rainstorm at at inn where he is stopping on his way to London by horse, & she to the country to visit a friend by coach. Of course, they eventually wed, & she writes her memoirs from the vantage point of a much loved wife & mother who recalls her past history.A lot of it is a little "detailed", LOL, & may make some readers uncomfortable, but it really is kind of cute in a way. I got a laugh out of it, it's much more entertaining than modern erotica, that's for sure.At the last, it really is a love story, & the ending left me happy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Despite its age and obvious differences in style from modern works, I found this book quite interesting beyond the never ending descriptions of the main character's sexual encounters. True, the author relies heavily upon (to the modern reader) long winded descriptions of sex in much detail. Beyond that, however, there were some interesting insights into the male perspectives. In particular, I was fascinated by the sections describing how wealthy, intelligent men can be "duped" into believing just about anything from a woman they desire. Apparently things have not changed much over the centuries.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read about Fanny Hill many years ago, and was always curious about the book. Somehow, I never did manage to get my hand on a copy until one evening, when I had to wait for my daughter, and my IPad froze. I toodled off to a book store, and found this book.Now, the book is about the sexual life of the young lady, Fanny Hill, and how she stumbled, from a life of poverty into prostitution. She was taken advantage off, when she was orphaned in her teens, and thus the story begins. The book is replete with sexual themes, and is a continuous romp through the dales of sexuality. In this sense, I can quite understand how this would have completely shocked the sense of public morality in more conservative times. Having said that, the writing is elegant and not at all obscene. About twenty years ago, I would have been greatly charmed through the length of the book. As it so happens, at my current stage in life, I wearied of the book about three quarters down the length, and just wished that they would get on with it!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    When it comes to books, sex isn't everything - it's 'story' that matters. Apart from the sex scenes there was little else to engage the reader - or this one, at least.Like most texts from the 1700s - this being published in 1749 - there are too many long-winded sentences held together by unearthly punctuation. Commas are, indeed, in abundance; semi-colons keep sentences alive way beyond their sell-by date; as for colons: sometimes there are three per epic sentence.I feel this novel would've worked better if there had been a stronger storyline, thus giving the sex scenes more prominence. Fewer sex scenes would, I believe, have enhanced the story. With so many erotic encounters the reader comes to expect them rather than look forward to them. Less is more, you might say. I also believe this would've been a better novel had it been given regular chapters and included a decent amount of dialogue. Having two long chapters, featuring paragraphs that stretch on for miles, with hardly any dialogue, made this hard work for me. So much so that by the second half of the book I was skipping more and more sections. What I do admire is the author's ability to describe sexual acts in fine detail without using a single profanity. Many writers from, say, the 1920s onwards would have had difficulty in this department.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    John Cleland’s 1748 novel Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure tells the story of a young woman who traveled from Lancashire to London seeking work as a domestic, but instead was lured into a brothel. Cleland writes the story from the perspective of Fanny, who is writing in the form of a letter. Amid her erotic encounters, she meets a man named Charles who convinces her to escape. She becomes the kept woman of a wealthy man, but finds that he’s having an affair with his maid, so she has an affair with his footman as revenge. He catches her and she must return to work in a brothel, though for wealthy clients. In the second volume, she describes the various acts at the brothel, spending more time describing others’ activities. Eventually, Fanny retires and has a chance encounter with Charles, whom she marries and with whom she shares the fortune she accumulated over the years.Cleland published the novel in order to pay his way out of debtors’ prison. Despite its success and numerous knock-off editions, Cleland was arrested and charged with “corrupting the King’s subjects,” though he was freed after renouncing the novel. It remained available in pirate editions from underground booksellers in the U.S. and U.K. from the late-eighteenth through nineteenth centuries. Only in the mid-twentieth century was the book cleared for publication in both nations as the result of court cases and changing public sentiment. Possibly aiding the revised opinions were the book’s historical significance and Cleland’s own writing style in which he eschewed “dirty words” or explicit descriptions in favor of euphemism. The work itself may be of interest to those looking to learn more about late-seventeenth-century sexual mores as well as the history of obscenity in the English-speaking world.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is what happens when you read too much Alan Moore.

    I actually enjoyed this story more than I thought. I wasn't really sure what to expect, it's porn after all. I liked the disruptions though. Some of them read liked a regular novel and some (most the sex scenes) got overly ridiculous which made the book fun. Most of this was dated though. I'll give it slack for being one of the earliest erotica novels in English. Modern erotic novelist, such as Anaïs Nin, are better, in my opinion.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Indexed (well, not Pius IV, but whatever)Banned smut is my favorite fashion of smut. If your work has been blacklisted, then I am a fan. Of course, Fanny Hill: Memoirs Of A Woman of Pleasure is redolent in this charge. The work has been abused by parochial souls, dragged through puritan circumspect, called out and sinned against by one moral majority after another. Mr. J. Cleland knew something of the Orient, but, alas, this makes no appearance in this novel. Maybe I do wish to critique the writer. I shall do so but for, let us hope, the right reasons—none of which have anything to do with that ugly puritanism that has for so long shortened the sights of Occidental fuckery.I have enjoyed this novel very much. I only read it last week. Though I’ve known about, known of, this story for some time, I only downloaded it on my Kindle recently.The plot is one of “corruption.” A beautiful theme if done correctly, corruption means here that some young female thing falls from stupid innocence to gutter-sucking puss-buggery. The hit-and-love dimension of my perfect soul is much angered that the teenage girl character, our Fanny, never learns the joy in blood-wet sex. Despite Fanny’s first encounters of the flesh being sapphist (and here Cleland does well), the silly tart never rams her forearm up anyone’s bunghole. The feminist in me cannot do without a binge of anal-boy rape. To shame, Cleland, to shame.No Sex in Your Violence (yes, yes, and I've gotta machine head as well)To an honest appraisal I conduct this swath of tilted letters. Damn the French, damn de Sade, from whom I've stolen my name. You’ve soured my brain to anything but what I want most now these days. No joy, let alone ecstasy, is really permissible without physical or mental, that is, all physiological really, destruction...The language itself is a treat; I can easily grant this. So much smut today is smut because it is shit. It is smut for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t even attempt perversion. Big, overzealous, perfidious, pestiferous diction is what I love. And, on occasion, Cleland’s “machines” (what a wonderful moniker for a ribald penis, no?) are wordsmith-worthy. At the very least, having composed this in the 18th century means that, by default, the language is already scrumptious—the English language. Nothing about this pornography in prose of Cleland has anything even remotely American about it.Highly RecommendedOh, and I did mention the Orient above because the writer spent some time on the subcontinent. This was when Mumbai was Bombay and colonialism was still profitable.In conclusion, I recommend that you consume Fanny Hill when wearing your dress, the summer dress that flaps about in the wind and is easily turned up. I did rub myself. This is smut, English smut. A minx in mind is a minx in heart is a minx in thought and dreams and soul and spirit. Yes, ignore my sad sadist reservations.Fanny Hill is a treat and one that is to be enjoyed for the ages.Love always, -V. de S
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    England, London, ca 1700-1750En ung forældreløs pige Fanny på 15 år sendes til London, hvor hun hurtigt havner i et bordel, for hun er virkelig ung og naiv. Hun forelsker sig i en af kunderne Charles og til sidst får hun ham efter at have gået så grueligt meget igennem.Bogen er delt op i 2 x 5 kapitler.???
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Don’t read this book if you dislike graphic descriptions of sex, because it’s chock full of it. Written in 1748, it’s very easy to see why it was banned for more than two centuries. “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure”, more commonly known by the title of one if it’s later edited down versions, “Fanny Hill”, reads like soft-core porn. There is a semblance of a story: young Fanny Hill (wink wink, a synonym for mons veneris) is orphaned and taken by a family “friend” to London, where she’s promptly abandoned. She’s only 15, but men and boarding house madams have no qualms about preying on her. She quickly adapts, going through several sexual relationships and prostitution, but far from coming to actual harm, she enjoys it. She progresses from nervous virgin to ‘woman of pleasure’, more than willing to submit and experiment. Critics point out that it’s male fantasy, and they’re certainly correct, but in one sense it seemed as honest to me, even as fantasy, compared with almost all other fiction before the 20th century, which completely avoid the subject of sex as if it doesn’t exist at all. Cleland, on the other hand, takes it to an extreme. I counted 30 (yes, 30!) sex scenes in the 188 pages in the two volumes. That’s about one scene every six pages, and as each scene is typically a few pages long … well, this book is probably 50% sex by page count alone, and 95% sex by intention. Cleland cloaks it in a love interest and points out that sex without love isn’t the same, but it’s clearly just a vehicle for him to explicitly describe fantasy after fantasy, progressively getter edgier as he goes. The positions start off pretty basic, but in volume two they get more diverse (I’ll spare you the details), and there is voyeurism, sex in front of other couples, one scene of S&M, and one scene of (gasp) homosexuality, though for that one Cleland has Fanny quickly (and hypocritically) condemn it.Frankly I’m tempted to rate the book higher because all this sex is wrapped up in beautiful, quaint 18th century language which I smiled over and found pretty erotic at times, it’s so unique for the time period, and it points out ways sex is the same throughout the centuries, and ways it (or our understanding of it) was different. It’s interesting to me that the female orgasm was thought to involve an emission, and that oral sex plays no part here at all. However, I have to be balanced. It’s so overkill in quantity that the power of any one scene is reduced. You may have to read it concurrently with another book as I did, which is rare for me, because it’s hard to stay “in the mood” for nonstop sex descriptions at all times of day while reading (or while others are around, lol). There are a few scenes that resemble reality, e.g. men who are either hideous or less than virile, but by and large it’s so over-the-top in fantasy, and includes cringe-inducing scenes where Fanny is basically raped, taken by force, but goes along with it and enjoys it. This edition was also annoying despite a great cover, showing Boucher’s “Reclining Girl” from 1751, an eye-goggling classic from Munich’s Alte Pinakothek. The font was too small, and the annotated explanatory notes were not only repetitive and obvious at times, but also committed the cardinal sin of revealing the ending, ruining what little plot there was. Grrr. It’s as if the editor was the annoying kid who constantly needs to raise his hand in class. If you do read it, I’d suggest something other than ‘Oxford World’s Classics’.Anyway, would the book be better if Cleland toned down the sex, introduced some of the horrors of prostitution (STD’s, violence, addiction, depression), and peered realistically into a frightened, traumatized girl’s psyche? Definitely. But I suppose then it wouldn’t be Fanny Hill. But I’m glad it survives, and I’m glad I read it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    “(T)here (is) no dress like an undress.”

    This pithy bit of wit (on p. 110 of the 2001 Modern Library paperback edition, which I just read) is about as close to a maxim as John Cleland — in the mouth (or at least the thoughts) of Fanny Hill comes.

    Cleland writes in an appropriately corseted Victorian vernacular. This particular edition maintains his peculiar spelling, syntax and punctuation, all of which present certain obstacles to a contemporary reader. Lucky for us, the subject-matter presents no such obstacle. Eminently more readable (and less laughable) than Anne Desclos’s (nom de plume: Pauline Réage) Story of O, Fanny Hill or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure contains many of the same elements so sportingly penned by Henry Fielding in Tom Jones — complete with happy ending. John Cleland, however, is no Henry Fielding. If the definition of ‘circumlocution’ in Webster or the OED doesn’t say ‘cf. John Cleland’s Fanny Hill,’ it ought to!

    There’s a wee bit of popular wisdom in Fanny Hill, an example of which can be found on p. 93: “We may say what we please, but those we can be the easiest and freest with are ever those we like, not to say love the best.” And yes — as several critics suggest — there’s ample irony, particularly in Volume II. “(A)ll my looks and gestures ever breathing nothing but that innocence which the men so ardently require in us, for no other end than to feast themselves with the pleasure of destroying it, and which they are so grievously, with all their skill, subject to mistakes in (on p. 149)”; and “(as) no condition of life is more subject to revolutions than that of a woman of pleasure, I soon recover’d my chearfulness (sic), and now beheld myself once more struck off the list of kept-mistresses, and return’d into the bosom of the community, from which I had been in some manner taken (on p. 162).”

    And how does Fanny (i.e., John Cleland) conclude her tale other than through a happy reunion with her first lover—and only real love? Permit me to quote at length from p. 174: “You may be sure a by-job of this sort interfer’d with no other pursuit, or plan of life, which I led in truth with a modesty and reserve that was less the work of virtue, than of exhausted novelty, a glut of pleasure, and easy circumstances, that made me indifferent to any engagements in which pleasure and profit were not eminently united; and such I could with the less impatience wait for at the hands of time and fortune, as I was satisfied I could never mend my pennyworths, having evidently been serv’d at the top of the market, and even been pamper’d with dainties…”.

    As Gary Gautier suggests (in almost inscrutably convoluted academic jargon) in his Introduction, and as Liza Minnelli, in the 1972 film version “Cabaret,” had so lustily sung. “money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around…”.

    Do I recommend a reading of Fanny Hill? Absolutely and without equivocation! After all, sex has been an appropriate topic of literary discourse here in the Western world since the Ancient Greeks (Sappho) and the Ancient Romans (Ovid and Catullus). Boccaccio, Rabelais, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sterne, Fielding, Cleland & Co. merely embellished upon the genre, each in his own particular way.

    RRB
    08/17/13
    Brooklyn, NY
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A girl becomes a prostitute before making good and marrying her true love. I found the narrative of the sexual encounters inbetween plodding and rather dull, and was never able to read more than a few pages at one sitting. Despite the detail, I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A funny, iconic, but mostly smutty eighteenth century novel about a young provincial lass who travels to London in search of work after her parents die, and naively moves into a brothel. By the time Fanny realises exactly what kind of 'position' she has accepted, the shrewd madam has already initiated Fanny into the tricks and 'delights' of prostitution. Over the course of a few years, Fanny is nearly raped, escapes the brothel to live with her lover, becomes a kept woman, returns to prostitution, has various lovers of different ages, sizes, tastes and duration, witnesses a homosexual tryst, which disgusts Cleland (sorry, disgusts Fanny), and a good time is had by all. Honestly, at first I found the erotic passages quaint and amusing, full of curious euphemisms (the 'cloven stamp of female distinction' and the male 'machine') and repetitive scenes, but then Fanny's cynical narrative voice soon faded into a series of male fantasies where women enjoy being forced into sex. Prostitutes are always pretty and healthy young girls who are in the trade seemingly through personal preference, and the harsh reality of diseases, unwanted pregnancies and rape are not allowed to ruin the illusion. Rape especially, because women who refuse to have sex are just being coy, and can be beaten into submission with that wondrous 'machine'. Fanny Hill is basically a constant and ever inventive series of scenarios, helpfully illustrated by Paul Avril, where heroine Fanny scores a quick poke from wealthy noblemen, doddering old fools, masochists and even the village idiot, and any pretence of plot, prose or morality (Fanny claims to love Charles, but forgets about him completely until the end of the book) is soon abandoned, and then even the sex gets boring! Good for a laugh, if nothing else.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Audiobook - well there is a lot of sex. The story is ok I guess - but too much sex with little of much else just did not work for me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    There is not one filthy word in this book. And there is barely one non-sexual scene in it. The story of young Fanny's downfall from sexual purity and rise to upper middle-class comfort is infamous, of course and earned Cleland immortality which, based on the writing he hardly deserves. Sometimes it was obvious that he realized how tedious the descriptions of Fanny's various encounters were getting to be. It is curious to think how limited is our ability to describe genitalia and the use thereof. Cleland's choice (or more likely the writing style of the 18th century) to write about sex the way in which he did gave him more nouns and adjectives than the modern writer might use, I thought, but even then, reading about the 'machines' of Fanny's different partners and the ladies' mounds and 'mangled' and suffering parts so endlessly, was tedious indeed. It was far more interesting to wonder about the staying power of this book. I can only assume it has something to do with its reputation and its being one of, if not the first, English erotic novel.Reading it as an 18th century novel, I am able to give it 3 stars. Written at a later time, it would surely rate much lower and garner at least a 4 on the yawn scale.This year I am on the hunt for books found within books. Naturally there are no other books mentioned within this book - Fanny did not seem to have time for or interest in anything other than her throbbing, hungry, nether regions.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's erotica. That pretty much says it all. The story wasn't completely ridiculous, which is pretty good for erotica where plot is often only a minor element used to move from one sexual encounter to the next. The language was laughable by current standards, but given that it was written in the 1700s, I'm sure it was scandalously racy in it's time. I enjoyed some of the sex (when I could get past the wording), and the story didn't bore me. It was a fun and easy read. Great vintage porn.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In August 2002 I started the month in the 18th century, reading 'According to Queeney' by Beryl Bainbridge, the story of Samuel Johnson's relationship with Hester Thrale and then 'Fanny Hill' by John Cleland, which is a classic of 18th century erotica.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Being that this book was written in the late 18th century, I did not think it could possibly be as erotic as the 18th century folks thought it was. I was wrong. I understand why they did not want their virginal "misses" reading this book. It was definately titillating. When I first started reading the book, I was reminded of [The Crimson Petal and the White]. I wonder if [[Faber]] was inspired by Fanny Hill.Anyway, I liked the book. I do advise reading it at home. I did not take my advice and ended up sitting in the lunchroom blushing from ear to ear.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am utterly prejudiced about this particular edition since I put together this version of Fanny Hill with the great Herb Lubalin. It is a particularly beautiful piece of book-work and I am very proud of it. Oh yes, the writing is loads of fun, and the illustrations are very sweet as well.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The most amazing thing about this book was the depth of sexual detail given its time of writing, which I think is around 1800. It's like a Penthouse letter from the time of 'merry old England.'
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Porn in a Victorian English is still porn. Is porn literature? Leave it long enough and anything becomes literature, it seems. Dated and boring.Edit:Somebody took offence with my throwaway remark about this using Victorian English. (It's really Georgian.) My bad! Wish the commenter could have been nicer about it though!)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Well, it's a classic, isn't it? The eroticism is a bit tame by modern standards but it's an interesting read, and must have been explosive in its own time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fanny Hill is important because of its place in the history of the end of censorship in America, but it's also a fun read. The book takes a positive view of sex generally - the first-person narrator enjoys sex for its own sake, and isn't consumed with guilt over all the sex she has, but she also acknowleges that sometimes bad things happen because of sex or the desire for it. The book is unusual for a book which graphically depicts sex acts in that there are no "dirty words" in the book - the characters don't swear, and the narrator uses coy euphemisms to describe the details.

Book preview

The Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - John Cleland

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Fanny Hill

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

John Cleland

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CONTENTS

Letter the First

Letter the Second

About the Author

About the Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

Letter the First

MADAM,

I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who, looking on all thought or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.

Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with the same liberty that I led it.

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 nets, a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarged by my mother’s keeping a little day-school for the girls in her neighborhood. 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 age 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 expense 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 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 fond, tender parents, who were both carried off by the small-pox, within a few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby by 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 Kentish-man). 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 then I did not know the value of, was entirely unmarked 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 beer down to see her friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was returned to her place.

As I had now nobody left alive in the village, who had concerned 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.

Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with her, by piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to be seen in London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell within her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which perfectly turned the little head of me.

Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not without a spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going clothes did not rise above dowlas shifts and stuff gowns, belaced with silver: all which we imagined grew in London, and entered for a great deal into my determination of trying to come in for my share of them.

The idea however of having the company of a townswoman with her, was the trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of me during my journey to town, where she told me, after the manner and style, ‘as how several maids out of the country had made themselves and all their kind forever: that by preserving their VIRTUE, some had taken so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept them coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some, mayhap, came to be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as another?’; with other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to begin this promising journey, and to leave a place which, though my native one, contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown insupportable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold air of charity, with which I was entertained, even at the only friend’s house that I had the least expectation of care and protection from. She was, however, so just to me, as to manage the turning into money the little matters that remained to me after the debts and burial charges were allowed for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune into my hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe, packed up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with seventeen shillings in silver, stowed in a spring-pouch, which was a greater treasure than I ever had seen together, and which I could not conceive there was a possibility of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken up with the joy of seeing myself mistress of such an immense sum, that I gave very little attention to a world of good advice which was given me with it.

Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the Chester wagon, I pass over a very immaterial scene of leave-taking, at which I dropped a few tears betwixt grief and joy; and, for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over all that happened to me on the road, such as the wagoner’s looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were defeated by the valiance of my guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for the protection by making me bear all travelling charges, which I defrayed with the utmost cheerfulness, and thought myself much obliged to her into the bargain. She took indeed great care that we were not overrated, or imposed on, as well as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not her vice.

It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached the town, in our slow conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As we passed through the greatest streets that led to our inn, the noise, of the coaches, the hurry, the crowds of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of the shops and houses, at once pleased and amazed me.

But guess at my mortification and surprise when we came to the inn, and our things were landed and delivered to us, when my fellow traveller and protectress, Esther Davis, who had used me with the utmost tenderness during the journey, and prepared me by no preceedings signs for the stunning blow I was to receive, when I say, my only dependence and friend, in this strange place, all of a sudden assumed a strange and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded my becoming a burden to her.

Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her assistance and good offices, which I relied upon, and never more wanted, she thought herself, it seems, abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by having brought me safe to my journey’s end, and seeing nothing in her procedure towards me but what natural and in order, began to embrace me by the way of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that I had not spirit or sense enough so much as to mention my hopes or expectations from her experience, and knowledge of the place she had brought me to.

Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to nothing more than a concern at parting, this idea procured me perhaps a slight alleviation of it, in the following harangue: That now we were got safe to London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she advised me by all means to get into one as soon as possible—that I need not fear getting one—there were more places than parish-churches—that she advised me to go to an intelligence office—that if she heard of anything stirring, she would find me out and let me know; that in the meantime, I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her where to send to me; that she wished me good luck, and hoped I should always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bringing a disgrace on my parentage. With this she took her leave of me and left me, as it were, on my own hands, full as lightly as I had been put into hers.

Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which had passed in a little room in the inn: and no sooner was her back turned, but the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances, burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart though I still remained stupified, and most perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself.

One of the waiters coming in added yet more to my uncertainty by asking me, in a short way, if I called for anything. To which I replied innocently: No. But I wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for that night. He said he would go and speak to his mistress, who accordingly came and told me drily, without entering in the least into the distress she saw me in, that I might have a bed for a shilling and that, as she supposed I had some friends in town (there I fetched a deep sigh in vain!) I might provide for myself in the morning.

It is incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize in its greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed to lie on that night calmed my agonies; and being ashamed to acquaint the mistress of the inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an intelligence office, to which I was furnished with written directions on the back of a ballad, Esther had given me. There I counted on getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might be fit for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little stock should be consumed. And as to a character, Esther had often repeated to me, that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, however affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly, that her procedure was all in course, and that is was only my ignorance of life that had made me take it in the light I at first did.

Accordingly, the next morning I dressed myself as clean and as neat as my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with special recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl, barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap, I got to the wished for intelligence office.

It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with a book before her in great form and order, and several scrolls, ready made out, of directions for places.

I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up my eyes or observing any of the people round me who were attending there on the same errand as myself, and dropping her curtsies nine deep, just made a shift to stammer out my business to her.

Madam heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty minister of state, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me no answer but to ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told me places for women too slight built for hard work but that she would look over her book, and see what was to be done for me, desiring me to stay a little, till she had dispatched some other customers.

On this, I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a declaration which carried with it a killing uncertainly that my circumstances could not well endure.

Presently, assuming more courage and seeking some diversion from my uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little and sent my eyes on a course round the room where they met full tilt with those of a lady (for such my extreme innocence pronounced her) sitting in a corner of the room, dressed in a velvet mantle (nota bene, in the midst of summer), with her bonnet off; squab-fat, red-faced, and at least fifty.

She looked as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at me from head to foot, without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her eyeing me so fixedly put me to and which were to her, no doubt, the strongest recommendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose. After a little time, in which my air, person and whole figure had undergone a strict examination, which I had, on my part, tried to render favourable to me, by primming, drawing up my neck, and setting my best looks, she advanced and spoke to me with the greatest demureness:

"Sweetheart, do you want a place?

Yes, and please you, (with a curtsey down to the ground).

Upon this she acquainted me she was actually come to the office herself to look out for a servant; that she believed I might do, with a little of her instruction; that she could take my very looks for a sufficient character; that London was a very wicked, vile, place; that she hoped I would be tractable, and keep out of bad company. In short, she said all to me that an old experienced practitioner in town could think of, and which was much more than was necessary to take in an artless inexperienced country maid, who was even afraid of becoming a wanderer about the streets and therefore gladly jumped at the first offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a lady, for such my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was; I being actually hired under the nose of the good woman that kept the office, whose shrewd smiles and shrugs I could not help observing, and innocently interpreted them as marks of being pleased at my getting into place so soon; but, as I afterwards came to know, these Beldams understood one another very well, and this was a market where Mrs. Brown, my mistress, frequently attended on the watch for any fresh goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers and her own profit.

Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain, that fearing, I presume, lest better advice or some accident might occasion my slipping through her fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my inn where, calling herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered without the least scruple or explanation as to where I was going.

This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St. Paul’s Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she gave me and thence renewed her directions to the coachman to drive to her house in —— Street, who accordingly landed us at the door, after I had been cheered up and entertained by the way with the most plausible flams, without one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I was by the greatest good luck fallen into the hands of kindest mistress, not to say friend, that the vast world could afford; and accordingly I entered her doors with most complete confidence and exultation, promising myself that, as soon as I could be a little settled, I would acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.

You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not lessened by the appearance of a very handsome back parlor, into which I was led and which seemed to me magnificently furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the ordinary ones in inns upon the road. There were two gilt pier-glasses, and a buffet on which a few pieces of plate, set out to the most show, dazzled and altogether persuaded me that I must be got into a very reputable family.

Here my mistress first began her part with telling me that I must have good spirits and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me to be a common servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her; and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more than twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such as ‘yes! no! to be sure!’

Presently my mistress touched the bell, and in came a strapping maidservant who had let us in. Here, Martha, said Mrs. Brown, I have just hired this young woman to look after my linen, so step up and show her her chamber; and I charge you to use her with as much respect as you would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what I shall do for her.

Martha, who was an arch jade, and being used to this decoy, had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half-curtsy and asked me to walk up with her and accordingly showed me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there was a handsome bed where Martha told me I was to lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress, who she was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she ran out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress! and how happy I was to light upon her! and that I could not have bespoke a better with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have started suspicions in any but such an unpractised simpleton who was perfectly new to life and who took every word she said in the very sense she laid out for me to take it; but she readily saw what a penetration she had to deal with and measured me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me, so as to make me pleased with my cage and blind to the wires.

In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my future service we were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the same parlour where there was a table laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house, and whose business it was to prepare and break such young fillies as I was to the mounting block; and she was accordingly, in that view, alloted me for a bedfellow; and to give her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferred on her by the venerable president of this college.

Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation of Mrs. Phoebe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and instruction I was affectionately recommended.

Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me as a companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon overruled my most humble and most confused protestations against sitting down with her Ladyship, which my very short breeding just suggested to me could not be right or in the order of things.

At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two madams and carried on in double meaning expressions, interrupted every now and then by kind assurances to me, all tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my present condition, augment it they could not, so very a novice was I then.

It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of sight for a few days, till such clothes could be procured for me as were fit for the character I was to appear in, of my mistress’s companion, observing withall that on the first impressions of my figure much might depend; and, as they rightly judged, the prospect of exchanging my country clothes for London finery made the clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me. But the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her Does (as they called the girls provided for them), till she secured a good market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the appearances of having brought into her Ladyship’s service.

To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my story, I pass the interval to bed time, in which I was more and more pleased with the views that opened to me of an easy service under these good people; and after supper being showed up to bed, Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluctance in me to strip and go to bed in my shift before her now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go on with undressing myself; and, blushing at now seeing myself naked to my shift, I hurried to get under the bedclothes out of sight. Phoebe laughed and was not long before she placed herself by my side. She was about five and twenty, by her most suspicious account, in which, according to all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that stale stage in which those of her

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