First published almost two hundred and seventy years ago and one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, more popularly known as Fanny Hill was written by John Cleland in debtors’ prison in London in 1748. It is said to be the first original English prose pornography. Author and historian Julie Peakman writing for History Today Magazine describes as ‘a revelation in that it incorporated pornographic scenes in a novelistic form, a feat never previously undertaken in English literature.’ Told in great sexual detail the novel follows the life of a young English country girl – Fanny Hill – who goes to London and becomes a prostitute. The book was quickly banned and became an under the counter best seller ever since. It wasn’t until over 220 years later that the erotic novel became available to the UK general public.
-Flashbak
