ABSTRACT
John Cleland’s classic erotic novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure or Fanny Hill was first published in 1748, the same year as Smollett’s Adventures of Roderick Random (Part 2, Document 3). Cleland framed the novel as a series of reminiscences his protagonist, Fanny Hill, shares with a female friend. In them, she fondly recounts her youth as a sex worker in London. Like Roderick Random, this even more scandalous work suggested that sailors were apt to indulge in illegal sexual pleasures. Late in the book, Fanny is living as the “kept mistress” of an elite rake who cannot satisfy her. To her delight, she comes upon an eager sailor who faces no such difficulties, though he also is not too careful about what kind of sex he has.
