Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Telling the tale of a prostitute in the mid-18th century, Fanny Hill relays the variety of sexual partners Fanny experienced. Written as a sequence of correspondences between the titular Fanny and an unnamed friend, the letters graphically detail the ... Read more

Telling the tale of a prostitute in the mid-18th century, Fanny Hill relays the variety of sexual partners Fanny experienced. Written as a sequence of correspondences between the titular Fanny and an unnamed friend, the letters graphically detail the various enjoyments Fanny partook in with the wealthier members and noblemen of British society. Despite an initial naivete, Fanny soon concludes that sexual intercourse may be enjoyed solely for pleasure, rather than as an act affirming romantic love between the partners. Notorious at the time of publication for the graphic sex scenes which populate many of the book's passages, Fanny Hill nevertheless would gain regard as one of the first pornographic novels ever published. When Britain's obscenity laws were struck down during the 1960s, the book was republished and introduced to new audiences legitimately. Fanny Hill has the distinct of being intermittently banned, with the author and various possessors of the text prosecuted. However over the centuries the book endured and today stands as part of England's literary pantheon. It was only due to the mass piracy of the text, and its reputation as an explicit, underground book depicting sexual activity, that the memoirs of Fanny Hill attained an enduring notoriety which saw it survive fully intact to the modern day. Less