Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman

Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, written by John Cleland in 1749 while in debtor's prison, has been called the first pornographic novel. Cleland demonstrated an artful ability to use the writing style of the day, use of irony, and a superficial story of virtue that triumphs over sin to make pornography acceptable enough to be read widely.

The story is written in an autobiographical tone and consists of letters Fanny Hill writes to a friend. Her story begins at age 15 when she is orphaned. She moves to London, and has to find a way to support herself. The path she takes, of moving into a brothel, may have been a common solution for young women without means or relatives during that time. While she is in the brothel she meets a man called Charles and falls in love with him, but after they have lived together for a while with her as a "kept woman," or supported by a man without benefit of marriage he disappears. She then aligns herself with another man under a similar arrangement. Eventually he dies, and leaves his/her fortune. Eventually she is reunited with Charles, and she marries him.

This summary leaves out all the rich language, all the passion, and even some of the overarching optimism about prostitution as a way for a young girl without easy means to make her way in the world. The story line Cleland uses, which includes many passages graphically depicting Fanny engaged in sexual activities with both men and women, makes up much of the action that drives the story along. However, Cleland seemed to foreshadow the legal rulings he would inspire over 200 years later by providing moral lessons and insights about characters and motives that give the book the legal concept of "redeeming value."

The language used by Cleland reminds one of other writers of the day, for example, Jonathan Swift. The writing reminds one of Jonathan Swift in another way as well, because Swift also used flowery language and deceptively simple logic to make things viewed as unacceptable by society not only acceptable but desirable - the consumption of babies as a profitable food product. He uses the language to put forth the pretense that because he used lots of elaborate language, he was not speaking directly and frankly about sex acts:

At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse I am conscious of owing you, for having, perhaps, too much affected the figurative style; though surely, it can pass nowhere more allowably than in a subject which is so properly the province of poetry, nay, is poetry itself, pregnant with every flower of imagination and loving metaphors, even were not the natural expressions, for respects of fashion and sound, necessarily forbid it." (Fanny Hill, p. 288)

Although Ollsen (2000) seems to think Cleland intended sincerely to write a book that was a "a paean to the superiority of the joys of love and virtue over those of lust and vice," these qualities take up a very small portion of the book, and one can reasonably argue that the author's intent is shown most accurately by the volume of words devoted to it.

Cleland seemed to understand how to write pornography in a way that courts would eventually find acceptable. Fanny Hill was banned as too pornographic many times after its publication. The United States Supreme Court ruled as to whether the book was too obscene to be published and decreed that "a book cannot be proscribed as obscene unless found to be utterly without redeeming social value." (Supreme Court, 1996) Fanny Hill passed this test to the Supreme Court's satisfaction, and the lower court ruling banning the book was overturned.

Looking fuirther at Olssen's (2000) argument, she contends that Fanny Hill presents a balanced view of life, combining the acquisition of knowledge, a healthy sex life, and financial responsibility. She points to Fanny's mentors along the way and Fanny's steadfast love for Charles and her marked preference for monogamy and marriage. However, many writers wrote about markedly high ideals cynically to make points about what was seriouslyl wrong with society of the day. For this we have not only the example given early, of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," but Voltaire's Candide. Fanny Hill could have hired herself out as a maid. Instead she not only naively lets herself be lured into a brothel, but she does not flee when she realizes the true nature of the place, and instead of choosing between prostitution and anything else, she chooses between an unattractive old man and a handsome young man. Olssen's interpretation seems naive.