"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.
- ISBN10 0140620885
- ISBN13 9780140620887
- Publish Date 30 June 1994 (first published 1 October 1965)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 11 December 2012
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Penguin Classics
- Format Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
- Pages 224
- Language English