Publication of Fanny Hill
John Cleland began courting the Portuguese in a vain attempt to refound the Portuguese East India Company. In 1748, Cleland was arrested for an £840 debt (equivalent to a purchasing power of about £100,000 in 2005) and committed to Fleet Prison, where he remained for over a year. It was while he was in prison that Cleland wrote Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, which was published in two installments, in November 1748 and February 1749. In March of that year, he was released from prison.
In November 1749, Cleland was arrested, along with the publishers and printer of Fanny Hill. In court, Cleland disavowed the novel and said that he could only "wish, from my Soul," that the book be "buried and forgot" (Sabor). The book was then officially withdrawn. It was never legally published again for over a hundred years. However, it continued to sell well and to be published in pirated editions. In March of 1750, Cleland produced a highly bowdlerized version of the book, but it, too, was proscribed; eventually, the prosecution against Cleland was dropped, and the expurgated edition continued to sell legally.
Read more about this topic: John Cleland
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