Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

Fanny Hill

I was curious to read Fanny Hill, as I had always heard that at the time it was written, 1748, it created quite a scandal. It’s certainly graphic as far as how it depicts sex, but by today’s standards it’s not much different than any of the romance novels I’ve recently read. In fact, I’d say it’s a much better read as it doesn’t make up a fake plot just to provide sex scenes like those that I’ve read.

The plot is similar to a typical romance novel: young girl’s parents die and she’s thrown into a life of turmoil. In this case, Fanny ends up in a “house of ill-repute.” Because she is very smart and knows how to please a man, she becomes the mistress to some rich and powerful men at various times throughout the novel, which provides her with a decent living and even an extravagant lifestyle.  There’s even the traditional romance novel plot of her falling in love, losing her lover and eventually finding true love in the end.

While at first the book seemed to be a little hard to read due to the old English way it was written, by the end I didn’t even notice. I found it interesting that male homosexuality was looked upon with great disgust, but that the female version seemed to be okay. (Probably because it was actually written by a man–go figure!) The other interesting thing was that it depicted women as enjoying sex,which was probably scandalous at the time.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Fanny Hill and would recommend it to others as long as they’re not turned off or insulted by descriptive (but tame by today’s standards) sexcapades.

You can purchase a copy of Fanny Hill at Amazon.

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