Andrew Davies (an absolute veteran of BBC classic dramas) adapted this book for television in 2007, and when they called for actresses to take on the main part of Fanny Hill over 70 different actors turned up wanting it. When broadcast, the first episode gave BBC Four its biggest audience when it was watched by 1.1 million viewers. [1]
Probably the most famous pornographic novel in English literature is John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure which was first published in two instalments, on 21 November 1748 and in February 1749. Written while its author was in debtors’ prison in London, ‘Fanny Hill’, as it is popularly known, is considered to be “the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel” and has become one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is the first-person narrative of an adolescent girl’s exploration of physical pleasures. Tricked into prostitution, 15-year-old Fanny Hill quickly learns the power of her own body and the ways of physical passion. She discovers that sex need not be just for love and sets out to explore sexual pleasures in as wide a variety as she can.
The book epitomises the use of euphemism. The text does not contain any explicit names or everyday terms for body parts but instead relies on literary descriptions. Originally there were no illustrations, but over the years later editions have contained sketches, often explicit. Cleland reportedly sold the copyright to the book for 20 guineas to escape debtor’s prison, and the publisher, Ralph Griffiths, made a profit large enough to allow him to launch one of the first major literary periodicals in England.
Although published anonymously and with a fictitious imprint, Cleland and Griffiths were both prosecuted in Britain for obscenity in November 1749. In court, Cleland renounced the novel, and it was officially withdrawn. The two managed to avoid punishment but it cost Cleland any further ambitions he might have had as a writer.
The infamy caused the book to become popular and pirate editions soon appeared. Eventually, ‘Fanny Hill’ made its way to the United States where, in one of the earliest obscenity cases in the US, it was outlawed for being a “lewd and obscene” novel. Although having been in print almost continuously for 200 years, Cleland’s book was not legally available in the US until 1963, and in the UK until 1970.
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