Fanny Hill. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

John Cleland

Fanny Hill, also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland. It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history of literature. The book is written as a series of letters from Frances Fanny Hill to an unknown woman, with Fanny justifying her life-choices to this individual. This fictional account of a young womans 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. Fannys story offers modern readers sensuality and substance, as well as an unusually frank depiction of love and sex in the eighteenth century. The edition contains 12 original illustrations by Édouard-Henri Avril, a French painter and illustrator of erotic literature.