Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

by John Cleland, Richard Terry (Editor), Helen Williams (Editor)

John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure has been described as the first erotic novel in English and is perhaps the greatest example of the genre. From the outset it was mired in disrepute. Cleland penned the novel to liberate himself from debtors’ prison, and the book’s manifestly lewd content led to its legal suppression within a year of publication. Though versions of the novel, nearly always abridged in some form, continued to find a way into print, the Memoirs remained an underground text until the 1960s. Only as that decade ushered in a culture less socially deferential and more sexually permissive was the moment opportune for the obscenity ban to be successfully challenged. Cleland’s novel is a triumph of literary style, resting on his invention of an entirely new, vividly metaphoric, terminology for describing sexual pleasure.

This Broadview Edition provides extensive materials on Cleland’s biography and career, contemporary censorship, and pornography and prostitution in the eighteenth century.

Genres: Fiction

Kindle Edition

Published July 23, 2018

About the author

John Cleland (1709 – 1789) was an English novelist, most famous—and infamous—as the author of the erotic novel Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

He was born in Kingston upon Thames in Surrey but grew up in London, where his father was first an officer in the British Army and then a civil servant; he was also a friend to Alexander Pope, and Lucy Cleland was a friend or acquaintance of both Pope, Viscount Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Horace Walpole. The family possessed good finances and moved among the finest literary and artistic circles of London.

Cleland entered Westminster School in 1721, but he left or was expelled in 1723. His departure was not for financial reasons, but whatever misbehavior or allegation had led to his departure is unknown. Historian J. H. Plumb speculates that Cleland's puckish and quarrelsome nature was to blame, but, whatever caused Cleland to leave, he entered the British East India Company after leaving school. He began as a soldier and worked his way up into the civil service of the company and lived in Bombay from 1728 to 1740. He returned to London when recalled by his dying father. Upon William's death, the estate went to Lucy for administration. She, in turn, did not choose to support John.

Reviews

[Mikaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

reread for my thesis. first read i struggled so hard with it and took serious issue with cleland's portrayal of sexual dynamics. a year and a half later i find it much more compelling although still troubling at times. but overall this is a book about the joys of pleasure and a bunch of women having a bunch of sex without shame or any serious consequences (debatable). the fact that it was written by a man is like ... uh okay? tf do you know. but overall, a pretty cool piece of work given it was published in 1748

[mj · Rating 3 out of 5]

rip fanny hill you would have loved wattpad and rose toy

[Artemis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was forced to read this

[Martha]

Lyrical and metaphorically imaginative albeit titillating.