Memoirs of Fanny Hill

Publisher Marketing: I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who, looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy. Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with the same liberty that I led it. Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint situations such as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of decency that were never made for such unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too much sense, too much knowledge of the originals, to sniff prudishly and out of character at the pictures of them. The greatest men, those of the first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets with nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not think them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon. Contributor Bio:  Cleland, John John Cleland was an English writer who is best known for his erotic novel Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. An employee of the British East India Company, Cleland spent extended periods in Bombay, India, until recalled to England because of his father's illness. With no financial support from his family, Cleland amassed enough debt to land in Fleet Prison, where he is believed to have composed Fanny Hill, /em>. His subsequent arrest following the publication of Fanny Hill prompted Cleland to withdraw the novel, and while it was not legally published for over a hundred years, it continued to sell well as a pirated work. Cleland never achieved professional or financial success with his writing. He died in 1789.