John Cleland (1709-1789) was an English novelist, best remembered for Fanny Hill, a book that was suppressed for obscenity for more than two centuries and is now regarded as a landmark of erotic fiction in English. He lived in eighteenth-century England, when the novel and the book trade were expanding quickly, and he wrote in English.
He was the son of William Cleland, a government official and former naval officer who knew Alexander Pope. Cleland attended Westminster School between 1721 and 1723 and from 1728 served the East India Company in Bombay, where he became secretary to the local council. After returning to England in 1740 he spent years without any steady employment. In 1748 he was jailed for debt in Fleet Prison, and it was there that he finished the text that would become Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, published in two parts. The book led to a prosecution; in court Cleland said he wished it could be forgotten, and a bowdlerised edition soon appeared that could be sold legally.
He also wrote other novels, poetry, translations and journalism, but none of them brought him comfort, and he complained about this bitterly. He died unmarried and short of money in 1789.
His legacy rests mainly on Fanny Hill. After decades of prohibition in Britain and the United States, a 1966 US Supreme Court ruling recognised a modicum of literary merit and blocked its condemnation as obscene. Today it is read for its narrative skill and its irony about gender roles.
Key works
- Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749), a novel about a young courtesan told with irony and a lively style.
- Memoirs of a Coxcomb (1751), a second novel mixing social satire and comedy of manners.
- The Surprises of Love (1764), a story about deception and surprise in romantic relationships.
- The Woman of Honour (1768), a novel about female reputation and the social pressures surrounding it.
Books to read
- Memoirs of Fanny Hill A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) EnglishEPUB 333 KBRead online
Curiosities
A trial and a retraction
After *Fanny Hill* appeared, Cleland was arrested again in 1749. In court he disowned the novel and said he wished it to be forgotten.
Boswell's verdict
The biographer James Boswell called him a sly, old malcontent, an image that matches the sour reputation many contemporaries gave him.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.