Fanny Hill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover of an undated American edition, c. 1910 |
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| Author | John Cleland |
|---|---|
| Original title | Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Erotic novel |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1748 & 1749 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-14-043249-3 |
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, also known as Fanny Hill, is a novel by John Cleland. Written in 1748 while Cleland was in debtor's prison in London, it is considered the first modern "erotic novel", and has become a byword for the battle of censorship of erotica.
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[edit] Publishing history
The novel was published in two installments, in November of 1748 and February of 1749. Initially, there was no governmental reaction to the novel, and it was only in November 1749, a year after the first installment was published, that Cleland and his publisher were arrested and charged with "corrupting the King's subjects." In court, Cleland renounced the novel and it was officially withdrawn. However, as the book became popular, pirate editions appeared. In particular, an episode was interpolated into the book depicting homosexuality between men, which Fanny observes through a chink in the wall. Cleland published an expurgated version of the book in March 1750, but was nevertheless prosecuted for that, too, although the charges were subsequently dropped. Some historians, such as J. H. Plumb, have hypothesised that the prosecution was actually caused by the pirate edition containing the "sodomy" scene.
In the 19th century, 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.
Erica Jong's 1980 novel Fanny purports to tell the story from Fanny's point of view, with Cleland as a character she complains fictionalized her life.
[edit] Plot
The book concerns the titular character, who begins as a poor country girl who is forced by poverty to leave her village home and go to town. There, she is tricked into working in a brothel, but before losing her virginity there, escapes with a man named Charles with whom she has fallen in love. After several months of living together, Charles is sent out of the country unexpectedly by his father, and Fanny is forced to take up a succession of new lovers to survive.
What is remarkable and innovative about the novel is that Cleland's writing style is witty, learned, and full of Classical asides. Also, Fanny herself does not, like Roxana or Moll Flanders, repent. She has no remorse for her education in sex, although she does realize that she is being exploited[citation needed]. Further, Fanny acts as a picara: as a prostitute she shows the wealthy men of the peerage at their most base and private[citation needed]. Samuel Richardson and Daniel Defoe had written about women forced into compromised situations before, and they had hinted graphically enough that the subversive and erotic context was present, but neither made their heroines women of pleasure. Neither of them imputed to their women any joy in their situation, whereas Cleland does.
[edit] Extract
...and now, disengag’d from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant. Its prodigious size made me shrink again; yet I could not, without pleasure, behold, and even ventur’d to feel, such a length, such a breadth of animated ivory! perfectly well turn’d and fashion’d, the proud stiffness of which distended its skin, whose smooth polish and velvet softness might vie with that of the most delicate of our sex, and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root, through the jetty sprigs of which the fair skin shew’d as in a fine evening you may have remark’d the clear light ether through the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill: then the broad and blueish-casted incarnate of the head, and blue serpentines of its veins, altogether compos’d the most striking assemblage of figure and colours in nature. In short, it stood an object of terror and delight.
But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity, through the want of occasions in the strictness of his home-breeding, and the little time he had been in town not having afforded him one, was hitherto an absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly stock’d with; and it now fell to my lot to stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversiz’d machine was very fit to lay in ruins.
[edit] 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) [1]
- Fanny Hill (Sweden, 1968), starring Diana Kjær, Hans Ernback, Keve Hjelm, Oscar Ljung; directed by Mac Ahlberg[2]
- Fanny Hill (West Germany/UK, 1983), starring Lisa Foster, Oliver Reed, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Shelley Winters; directed by Gerry O'Hara[3]
- Paprika (Italy, 1991), starring Deborah Caprioglio, Stéphane Bonnet, Stéphane Ferrara, Luigi Laezza, Rossana Gavinel, Martine Brochard and John Steiner; directed by Tinto Brass.[4]
- Fanny Hill (USA, 1995), directed by Valentine Palmer.[5]
- An adaptation by Andrew Davies for the BBC is in preparation (May 2006).[6]
[edit] References in popular culture
In a portrait that appears in the first volume of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Fanny Hill is depicted as a member of the 18th Century version of the League, which also includes The Scarlet Pimpernel, the Pimpernel's wife Marguerite Blakeney, Captain Clegg, Natty Bumppo and Lemuel Gulliver. Moore has said that he will write a comic about this League. She is not featured in a portrait of the 18th century League in the film version, which only includes the male members.
The novel is also mentioned in Tom Lehrer's song "Smut".
A further reference to "Fanny Hill" can be found within the 1968 David Niven, Lola Albright film "The Impossible Years". One of the scene in which the novel was referred to, took place when the younger daughter of Niven's character is seen reading "Fanny Hill". It is implied that the book is immature and therefore as the older daughter, Linda, is no longer reading Fanny Hill but has graduated to Sartre within a week, then Linda must have grown up.
[edit] References
- ^ Fanny Hill (1964) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Fanny Hill (1968) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Fanny Hill (1983) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Paprika at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Fanny Hill (1995) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Article from The Guardian
[edit] External links
- Complete text of Fanny Hill
- Charles Dickens's Themes A surprising allusion to Fanny Hill in Dombey and Son.
