- Paperback: 236 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (21 Feb 1985)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192816349
- ISBN-13: 978-0192816344
- Product Dimensions: 18.3 x 11.7 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,471,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
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Product Description
Product Description
Peter Sabor presents both the first critical edition and the first accurate, wholly unexpurgated text of the most famous erotic novel in English, better known as Fanny Hill.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Literature, as with the other arts, has often courted scandal, and scandal often prevents an objective, rational appreciation of a work until that scandal has become a part of history. Such is the case with 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' ('Fanny Hill'). It is only after the late Twentieth Century relaxation of taboos that we have easy access at the unexpurgated text and can look beyond the purely sexual aspects of it and consider its place as an Eighteenth Century text, and its importance in the development of the novel. Peter Sabor's critical introductory essay contextualises the piece well, not playing up the eroticism and astutely drawing the reader to comparisons with Samuel Richardson's novel 'Pamela' (1740). One cannot ignore the eroticism of the novel, though, and it would be wrong to do so for therein lie many of its strengths. It is never explicit - although one could claim that in allowing the reader to infer more and to translate mataphor the text becomes more erotic, more of a turn-on. It is a turn-on, even through its archaic metaphors, but one can't help but admire its boldness, energy and creativity. One feels it to be a more worthwhile read than modern, trashy erotic fiction with its expletives and explicit phraseology. Not by any means the best novel of the Eighteenth Century, but one of the better 'anti-Pamelas', and a vital piece in our picture of the development of the novel.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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4 reviews
50 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Lascivious! Unbelievable! An Erotic Literary Classic
2 Mar 2002
Format:Paperback
I once reviewed Matthew Lewis' 1796 novel "The Monk" and said that it should be rated "R". Well, having just had the experience (and it is an experience) of reading John Cleland's 1748-9 novel, "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure," everything else just seems like children's literature. Cleland's "Memoirs" was simultaneously reviled and a best seller, declared obscene and yet continued to be published illegally througout the 18th century. In the aftermath of the public frenzy for and against Samuel Richardson's ultra-famous novels "Pamela" and "Clarissa" and Henry Fielding's equally famous responses, "Shamela," "Joseph Andrews," and "Tom Jones," Cleland's novel strikes out into wholly uncharted moral and aesthetic territory.
Similarly to Defoe's "Moll Flanders," Cleland's novel begins with its heroine, Fanny Hill, an innocent, uneducated country girl, thrown at a very early age into the cruel world of London and forced into a life of prostitution. As an innocent virgin, the madam whose house she live in is saving Fanny for a noble customer whom they expect daily, but learns about sexual commerce by watching other prostitutes in the house. Eloping with a beautiful, wealthy young man named Charles before she engages in any sexual activity, the novel concerns Fanny's sexual awakenings and her life with and without her first love, Charles. The way that the novel refigures fidelity in the relationship between Fanny and Charles is astounding.
Cleland's master-stroke, if you will, linguistically, is to write a whole-heartedly pornographic novel and couch everything in such a rich variety of metaphors. Graphic scenarios can be found on almost every page, but there is a marked and remarkable absence of graphic language. Structurally, Cleland's plotting of Fanny Hill's escapades is exquisitely balanced and even-handed. Morally and aesthetically, "Memoirs" comes straight out of the strain of 18th century moral philosophy associated by turns, with Shaftesbury and David Hume. From Shaftesbury, Cleland takes the idea that aesthetics and morality should be judged on an equal form in works of art. From Hume, he takes the radical stance that vices and luxuries are not inherently evil, and even acceptable when not carried to extremes. Cleland makes judicious use of these structural and philosophical elements in creating one of the strongest and most liberated heroines in English literature.
Among other points of interest in the novel, there is the prevalence and even propriety of expressions of feminine desire, agency, power, and control over self and circumstances. Aside from her first entrance into London and her various periods as a kept-mistress, Fanny Hill is educated by the prostitute Phoebe, and the procuress Mrs. Cole to be an independent, self-regulating subject. Related to this is the rather revolutionary notion inferred that sexual education predicates all other sources of knowledge, and is at heart, the basis and foundation of human interaction, at least in the semi-utopic world of the novel.
There are so many fascinating things about Cleland's "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure," it would take forever to puzzle through them all. All the same, I've only been able myself to think critically about the novel at some distance of remove from reading it. Reading this novel was an interesting, but frustrating, and at times impossible task. It's not a difficult novel to read in terms of prose, but for a 188 page novel, it tends to overwhelm everything else while you're reading it. Like I said, reading "Memoirs" is an experience - I often had to look at the cover to recall that this is no simple work of pornography, but an acknowledged work of classic literature. By all accounts, a captivating novel. It gets five stars just because it is so amazing and outlandish. Aside from the Marquis de Sade, who belongs properly to the excesses of the Romantic Era, I had no idea that there was anything even remotely like this in the 18th century. To quote that immortal philospher, Stephon Marbury, Cleland's novel is "all nude...but tastefully done."
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Sultry Tale
11 May 2009
Format:Paperback
This is a great book for close literary examination. There is a ton to write about and it's an exciting read! For introduction courses on sexuality this novel is a short touch on issues that are expanded on in other pieces. Although the title implies Memoirs this is more of a single story about the experience of a women entering the sex industry.
7 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Suprisingly graphic
3 April 2003
Format:Paperback
I had to read this book for class. When the teacher said that it could be offensive, I shrugged it off. How offensive could an 18th cent. piece of literature be, right. This book is porn. Not the soft stuff, but hard core. There is a story and the novel is presented well. I think it paints a good depiction of the hardships of a woman at the time, yet is completely inaccurate on the life of a prostitute. ...
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