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Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Wordsworth Classics)

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Mr. H ———, content however with having the day break upon his triumphs, resign'd me up to the refreshment of a rest we both wanted, and we soon dropt into a profound sleep. Sutherland, John (14 August 2017). "Fanny Hill: why would anyone ban the racy novel about 'a woman of pleasure'?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 24 August 2017. But when I drew nearer to view the sleeping estray: Heavens! what a sight! no! no term of years, no turn of fortune could ever eraze the lightening-like impression his form made on me ...... Yes! dearest object of my earliest passion, I command for ever the remembrance of ​thy first appearance to my ravish'd eyes, ——it calls thee up, present; and I see thee now! Preachments of morality over the left shoulder, a life of joy painted in the ​gayest colours, caresses, promises, indulgent treatment, nothing in short was wanting to domesticate me entirely, and to prevent my going out any where to get better advice; alas! I dream'd of no such thing.

FANNY HILL - Project Gutenberg Australia

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, wrote with the same liberty that I led it. After some pause, he ask'd me, with a tone of voice mightily soften'd, whether I would make it up with him before the old lady returned, and all should be well; he would restore me his affections: at the same time offering to kiss me, and feel my breasts. But now my extreme aversion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him, I ran to the bell, and rang it, before he was aware, with such violence and effect, as brought up the maid to know what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted any thing? and, before he could proceed to greater extremities, she bounc'd into the room, ​and seeing me stretch'd on the floor, my hair all dishevell'd, my nose guishing out blood, (which did not a little tragedize the scene) and my odious persecutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmov'd by all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded, and did not know what to do. My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar; reading, or rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary plain-work, composed the whole system of it: and then all my foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity general to our sex, in the tender stage of life, when objects alarm, or frighten more by their novelty, than any thing else: but then this is a fear too often cured at the expence of innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look on man as a creature of prey that will eat her. Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me, that I must have good spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me to be a common servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her; and that, if I would be a good girl, she would do more than twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such as yes! no! to be sure. The young fellow had just dismounted, when the old lady immediately sprung up, with all the vigour of youth, derived no doubt from her late refreshment; and making him sit down, began in her turn to kiss him, to pat and pinch his cheeks, and play with his hair, all which he receiv'd with an air of indifference, and coolness, that showed him to me much altered from what he was when he first went on to the breach.Haslanger, Andrea (2011). "What Happens When Pornography Ends in Marriage: The Uniformity of Pleasure in "Fanny Hill" ". ELH. 78 (1): 163–188. doi: 10.1353/elh.2011.0002. eISSN 1080-6547. ISSN 0013-8304. JSTOR 41236538. PMID 21688452. S2CID 32906838. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure—popularly known as Fanny Hill—is an erotic novel by the English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, [1] [2] it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel". [3] It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history. [4] Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that wanton'd through all my veins, but fix'd with violence in that center appointed them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied in feeling, squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger between, till an Oh! express'd her hurting me, where the narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any depth. Our little plan was, that I should get out about seven the next morning, (which I could readily promise, as I knew where to get the key of the street-door) and he would wait at the end of the street with a coach, to convey me safe off; after which he would send and clear any debt incurr'd by my stay at Mrs. Brown 's, who he only judged, in gross, might not care ​to part with one, he thought, so fit to draw custom to the house.

Memoirs Of A Woman of Pleasure (Wordsworth Fanny Hill: Memoirs Of A Woman of Pleasure (Wordsworth

After saluting her, he led her to a couch that fronted us, where they both sat down, and the young Genoese help'd her to a glass of wine, with some Naples bisket on a salver. Had I consider'd this escapade of Mr. H ——— in no more than that light, and contented myself with turning away the wench, I had thought and acted right; but, flush'd as I was with imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H ——— to have been cheaply off, if I had not push'd my revenge farther, and repaid him, as exactly as I could for the soul of me, in the same coin. My father, who had received a maim on his limbs that disabled him from following the more laborious branches of country-drudgery, got, by making of nets, a scanty subsistance, which was not much enlarg'd by my mother's keeping a little day-school for the girls in her neighbourhood. They had had several children, ​but none lived to any age, except myself, who had received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy. N2 - John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure has been described as the first erotic novel in English and is perhaps the greatest example of the genre. From the outset it was mired in disrepute. Cleland penned the novel to liberate himself from debtors’ prison, and the book’s manifestly lewd content led to its legal suppression within a year of publication. Though versions of the novel, nearly always abridged in some form, continued to find a way into print, the Memoirs remained an underground text until the 1960s. Only as that decade ushered in a culture less socially deferential and more sexually permissive was the moment opportune for the obscenity ban to be successfully challenged. Cleland’s novel is a triumph of literary style, resting on his invention of an entirely new, vividly metaphoric, terminology for describing sexual pleasure.This Broadview Edition provides a new text of the original novel alongside extensive materials on Cleland’s biography and career, contemporary censorship, and pornography and prostitution in the eighteenth century. Kopelson, K. (1992). "Seeing sodomy: Fanny Hill's blinding vision". Journal of Homosexuality. 23 (1–2): 173–183. doi: 10.1300/J082v23n01_09. ISSN 0091-8369. PMID 1431071.Phœbe lay down by me, and ask'd me archly, if now that I had seen the enemy, and fully considered him, I was still afraid of him? or did I think I could venture to come to a close engagement with him? to all which not a word on my side: I sigh'd, and could scarce breathe: She takes hold of my hand, and having roll'd up her own petticoats, forced it half-strivingly towards those parts, where now grown more knowing, I mist the main object of my wishes; and finding not even the shadow of what I wanted, where every thing was so flat! or so hollow! In the vexation I was in at it, I should have withdrawn my ​hand, but for fear of disobliging her. Abandoning it then entirely to her management, she made use of it as she thought proper, to procure herself rather the shadow than the substance of any pleasure. For my part, I now pin'd for more solid food, and promis'd tacitly to myself that I would not be put off much longer with this foolery from woman to woman, if Mrs. Brown did not soon provide me with the essential specific: in short I had all the air of not being able to wait the arrival of my lord B ———, tho' he was now expected in a very few days: nor did I wait for him, for love itself took charge of the disposal of me, in spite of interest, or gross lust. Book Genre: 18th Century, Adult Fiction, Banned Books, Classics, Erotica, Fiction, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literature, Novels, Romance Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain, that, fearing, I presume, lest better advice, or some accident might occasion my slipping through her ​fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my inn, where calling herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered without the least scruple, or explanation as to where I was going. Bates, Stephen (1 March 2010). "Father Hill and Fanny Hill: an Activist Group's Crusade to Remake Obscenity Law". UNC / First Amendment Law Review. 8 (2): 49.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure’ Was 18th - Medium ‘Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure’ Was 18th - Medium

Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I had not the heart or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with my dependence on that beldam; so much did I think myself her's, soul and body: or rather, I sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good opinion of her, and chose to wait the worst at her hands, sooner than being turn'd out to starve in the streets, without a penny of money, or a friend to apply to: these fears were my folly. Conversation, example, all, in short, contributed, in that house, to corrupt my native purity, which had taken no root in education, whilst now the inflammable principle of pleasure, so easily fired at my age, made strange work within me, and all the modesty I was brought up in the habit, (not the instruction) of, began to melt away, like dew before the sun's heat; not to mention that I made a vice of necessity, from the constant fears I had of being turn'd out to starve. Mr. H ——— whom no distinctions of that sort seem'd to distract, scarce gave himself or me breathing time from the last encounter, but as if he had task'd himself to prove that the appearances of his vigour, were not signs hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition for renewing the onset, to which preluding with a storm of kisses, he drove the same course as before with unabated fervour, and thus in repeated engagements, kept me constantly in exercise till dawn of morning, in all which time, he made me full sensible of the virtues of his firm texture of limbs, his square shoulders, broad chest, compact hard muscles, in short a system of manliness, that ​might pass for no bad image of our antient sturdy barons, when they weilded the battle-ax, whose race is now so thoroughly refin'd and fritter'd away into the more delicate and modern-built frame of our pap-nerv'd softlings, who are as pale, as pretty, and almost as masculine as their sisters.

Phœbe at this redoubl'd her laugh, and, whilst I expected a very serious solution of my doubts and apprehensions in this matter, only told me that she never heard of a mortal wound being given in those parts, by that terrible ​weapon, and that some she knew younger, and as delicately made as myself, had outlived the operation, that she believed, at the worst, I should take a great deal of killing: ————that true it was, there was a great diversity of sizes in those parts, owing to nature child-bearing, frequent over-stretching with unmerciful machines; but that at a certain age, and habit of body, even the most experienc'd in those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid, and the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice, and things in their natural situation: but that since chance had thrown in my way one sight of that sort, she would procure me another, that should feast my eyes more delicately, and go a great way in the cure of my fears from that imaginary disproportion.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - John Cleland - Google Books Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - John Cleland - Google Books

Time Out wrote, "a relatively large budget and some respectable names in the cast list, but this is still limp softcore flummery sold on the half-remembered notoriety of its purported 18th century source...Lawyer Reed and madam Winters, meanwhile, seem as though they have their teeth gritted in the hope that it will all be over soon." [4] Sachidananda, Mohanty (2004). "Female Identity and Conduct Book Tradition in Orissa: The Virtuous Woman in the Ideal Home". Economic and Political Weekly. 39: 333–336. Presently my mistress touch'd the bell, and in came a strapping maid-servant, ​who had let us in: Here, Martha, said Mrs. Brown, I have just hir'd this young woman to look after my linnen; so step up, and shew her her chamber; and I charge you to use her with as much respect as you would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what I shall do for her. I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house his having seen such a person as me, for reasons I would explain to him more at leisure: and then, for fear of miscarrying by being seen together, I tore myself from him with a bleeding heart, and stole up softly to my room, where I found Phœbe still fast asleep, and hurrying off my few cloaths, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy and anxiety, that may be easier conceived than express'd.

Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating draughts of pleasure, I still lay on the couch, supinely stretch'd out, in a delicious languor diffus'd over all my limbs, hugging myself for being thus reveng'd to my heart's content, and that in a manner so precisely alike, and on the identical spot, in which I had receiv'd the suppos'd injury: no reflections on the consequences ever once perplex'd me, nor did I make myself one single reproach for having, by this step, completely enter'd myself of a profession more decry'd than disus'd. I should have held it ingratitude to the pleasure I had receiv'd, to have repented of it; and ​since I was now over the bar, I thought by plunging over head and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to drown all sense of shame or reflection. Prepared then, and disposed as I was by the discourse of my companions, and Phœbe 's minute detail of every thing, no wonder that such a sight gave the last dying blow to my native innocence. Places then being taken for Esther and me, in the Chester-Waggon, I pass over a very immaterial scene of leave-taking, at which I dropt a few tears betwixt grief and joy; and for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over all that happened to me on the road, such as the Waggoner's looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were defeated by the vigilance of my guardian Esther, who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for her protection, by making me bear all travelling charges, which I defray'd with the utmost chearfulness, and thought ​myself much obliged to her into the bargain. She took indeed great care that we were not over-rated, or imposed on, as well as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not her vice.

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