Nancy Friday, author of ‘My Secret Garden,’ dies

Nancy Friday, a journalist and author whose bestselling “My Secret Garden’’ was a landmark compilation of women’s sexual fantasies, has died at age 84.

Literary agent Robert Thixton said Friday died Sunday morning in her Manhattan apartment. She was 84 and died of complications from Alzheimer’s.

“My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies,’’ explicit letters and interviews gathered by Friday, was published in 1973 and is widely regarded as the first major book to compile women’s sexual fantasies. It was an era of erotic candour, from Dr. David Reuben’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (asterisk) ((asterisk) But Were Afraid to Ask)’’ to Erica Jong’s novel “Fear of Flying.’’ But Friday’s book was still shocking, with its graphic detail of everything from rape to bestiality. “My Secret Garden’’ was described at the time as a dirty book with the clean parts edited out.