Found: Rare tale of Fanny Hill... Britain’s 1st porn star
Notorious ‘obscene’ book at auction
A RARE copy of a scandalous book about a prostitute – which caused outrage when first published in 1749 – has been discovered.
Memoirs of the Life of Miss Fanny Hill, The Career of A Woman of Pleasure is thought to be the first pornographic novel to be written in English and contains saucy descriptions of its heroine’s adventures.
Its author John Cleland was arrested and charged with “corrupting the King’s subjects” and its publisher was convicted of printing a “lewd and obscene” book.
A copy of the novel dating back to 1880 is now set to be sold off at auction.
Antiquarian book collector
Jim Spencer said: “I came across it while I was cataloguing a box of ciga- rette cards. It was one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.
“These days, after the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey, it’s probably viewed as rather tame. It demonstrates just how much times have changed.”
The novel tells the story of a teenage orphan from a Lancashire village who travels to London and becomes a
prostitute. It uses female euphemisms such as “nethermouth” and “cloven stamp of female distinction”, while men’s parts are described as “sturdy stallions” and “furious battering rams”. Testicles are called “treasure bags of nature’s sweets”.
Clients fantasies were explored too. One extract reads: “He was exceedingly fond of female society, but on such occasion was continually labouring under the delusion that he was only a schoolboy. He was delighted when he could find a lady who could prevail on herself to humour this conceit.”
The novel was reprinted in the 1960s but even then was deemed too explicit.
More than 20,000 copies were seized from publishers and Scotland Yard told booksellers they risked prosecution under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act if they sold it.
Fanny Hill was published as part of the Oxford University Press’s World’s Classics series and the Penguin Classic series in 1985. Three film adaptations of the novel have been made and a two-episode BBC TV version was screened in 2007.
The 1880 copy of the book will be sold at Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, Derbyshire, on January 22.