Fanny Hill, also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, is a novel by John Cleland.

Written in 1749 while Cleland was in debtor's prison in London, it is considered the first "erotic" novel and its publication caused a furor. Immediately upon its release, the Church of England asked the British Secretary of State to "stop the progress of this vile Book, which is an open insult upon Religion and good manners". As a result, Cleland was arrested and charged with "corrupting the King's subjects."

Nonetheless, copies of the book were sold "underground," and the book eventually made its way to the United States where, in 1821, it was banned for obscenity.

In 1963, G. B. Putnam published the book under the title John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure which also was immediately banned for obscenity. The publisher challenged the ban in court.

In a landmark decision in 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Memoirs v. Massachusetts that the banned novel did not meet the Roth standard for obscenity.

Fanny Hill is still banned in Australia.

Film adaptations

Because of the book's notoriety (and public domain status), numerous film adaptations have been produced. Some of them are:

• Fanny Hill (USA/West Germany, 1964), starring Letícia Román , Miriam Hopkins, Ulli Lommel , Chris Howland ; directed by Russ Meyer, Albert Zugsmith (uncredited)
• Fanny Hill (Sweden, 1968), starring Diana Kjær , Hans Ernback , Keve Hjelm , Oscar Ljung ; directed by Mac Ahlberg
• Fanny Hill (West Germany/UK, 1983), starring Lisa Foster, Oliver Reed, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Shelley Winters; directed by Gerry O'Hara
• Fanny Hill (USA, 1995), directed by Valentine Palmer

External links

• Complete text of Fanny Hill
• Charles Dickens's Themes A surprising allusion to Fanny Hill in Dombey and Son.