The Life and Adventures of Miss Fanny Hill - John Cleland

As what is most likely the most famous English pornographic novel in all of literature, John Cleland’s The Life and Adventures of Miss Fanny Hill - later republished as The Memoirs of a Pleasure Woman - Fanny Hill is a unique look into the very naughty minds to be found in history while still remaining reasonably chaste in the language used.

Initially written in 1748 and the right's sold to Ralph Griffiths to get the author out of debtors' prison, the book was first published in 1749 and made enough money to launch The Monthly Review, one of the first major literary periodicals in England.

In one of the earliest obscenity cases in the United States, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts upheld the conviction of individuals who had shown an illustration from the book. A 1963 publication of the book led to the decision in Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966), in which the Supreme Court ruled the book not to be obscene and articulated a legal standard for determining when material crossed the line into obscenity.