Another 1749 novel, this is as a series of letters from Fanny to another woman. The story records her exploits from innocent 15 year old, to losing her virginity, working in a brothel, being a 'kept woman', and finally inheriting a fortune and meeting up with her long-lost first lover, with whom she (presumably) lives happily ever after. It depicts several popular erotic scenarios: lesbian sex, losing virginity, group sex, pretending to lose virginity, flagellation, and seducing an innocent boy. Cleland is creative and eloquent in his descriptions of sexual acts, and this book still works as pornography. It's also an interesting record of the times.
Cleland was born in 1709, and is thought to have written Fanny Hill while in Fleet Prison for debt, after returning home from a career in the British East India Company. None of his other writing was as successful as Fanny Hill, and he died in 1789 unmarried and alone. There's a suggestion that he might have been gay.
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