Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, also known as Fanny Hill is a novel by John Cleland. Written in 1749, it is considered the first erotic novel, and has became a byword for the battle of censorship of erotica. Fanny's story, as she falls into prostitution and then rises to respectability, takes the form of a confession that is coloured by copious and explicit physiological details of her carnal adventures.
During my visit to London for studies where we had an Old Ancestral Home, I stumbled on a family treasure. Apart from other things I also found a hump of books, dairies and notes in the treasure which contained classic, Age old, Erotic books, Novels, and Magazines probably collected by my Ancestors. They are all timeless and precious. They are a must read for all erotica lovers. I am sharing them on this site, Enjoy part 2 of Letter the First
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MEMOIRS OF A Woman of Pleasure.
LETTER THE SECOND Part-2
In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet’s turn to go on. Amongst all the beauties of our sex, that I had before, or have since seen, few indeed were the forms that could dispute excellence with her’s; it was not delicate, but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of her small but exactly fashioned limbs. Her complexion, fair as it was, appeared yet more fair, from the effect of two black eyes, the brilliancy of which gave her face more vivacity than belonged to the colour of it, which was only defended from paleness, by a sweetly pleasing blush in her cheeks, that grew fainter and fainter, till at length it died away insensibly into the overbearing white. Then her miniature features joined to finish the extreme sweetness of it, which was not belied by that of a temper turned to indolence, languor, and the pleasures of love. Pressed to subscribe her contingent, she smiled, blushed a little, and thus complied with our desires:
“My father was neither better nor worse than a miller near the city of York; and both he and my mother dying, I fell under the care of a widow and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord N..., at his seat in the county of..., where she brought me up with all imaginable tenderness. as I am now eighteen, before I had, on account of my person purely (for fortune I had notoriously none), several advantageous proposals; but whether nature was slow in making me sensible in her favourite passion, or that I had not seen any of the other sex who had stirred up the least emotion or curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till that age, preserved a perfect innocence, even of thought: whilst my fears of I did not now well know what, made me no more desirous of marrying than of dying. My aunt, good woman, favoured my timorousness, which she loooked on as childish affection, that her own experience might probably assure her would wear off in time, and gave my suitors proper answers for me.
“The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that it was neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two old domestics to take care of it. Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house and gardens, situated at about half a mile distance from any other habitation, except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.
“Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any memorable accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done before, left my aunt asleep, and secure for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to a kind of ancient summer house, at some distance from the house, I carried my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its door and window faced upon. Here I fell into a gentle breathing slumber, which stole upon my senses, as they fainted under the excessive heat of the season at that hour; a cane couch, with my work basked for a pillow, were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon awaked and alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I had never seen him before), who had strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jumped into it on the other side, which bordered on a wood, some trees whereof, inclined down to the water, formed a pleasing shady recess, commodious to undress and leave his clothes under.
“My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in the water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of surprise and fear; and, in course, I should immediately have run out, had not my modesty, fatally for itself, interposed the objection of the door and window being so situated, that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my way along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I could not bear the thought of, so much ashamed and confounded was I at having seen him. Condemned then to stay till his departure should release me, I was greatly embarrassed how to dispose of myself: I kept some time betwixt terror and modesty, even from looking through the window, which being an old fashioned casement, without any light behind me, could hardly betray any one’s being there to him from within; then the door was so secure, that without violence, or my own consent, there was no opening it from without.
“But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that objects which affright us, when we cannot get from them, draw our eyes as forcibly as those that please us. I could not long withstand that nameless impulse, which, without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me towards it; emboldened too by my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I ventured by degrees to cast my eyes on an object so terrible and alarming to my virgin modesty as a naked man.
“But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that struck me, was in general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin imaginable, which the sun playing upon made the reflection of it perfectly beamy. His face, in the confusion I was in, I could not well distinguish the lineamints of, any farther than that there was a great deal of youth and freshness in it. The frolic and various play of all his fine polished limbs, as they appeared above the surface, in the course of his swimming or wantoning with the water, amused and insensibly delighted me; sometimes he lay motionless, on his back, waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head of hair, that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls. Then the overflowing water would make a separation between his breast and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I could not escape observing so remarkable a distinction, as a black mossy tuft, out of which appeared to emerge a round, softish, limber, white something, that played every way, with ever the least motion or whirling eddy. I cannot say but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural instinct, attracted, detained, captivated my attention: it was out of the power of all my modesty to command my eye away from it; and seeing nothing so very dreadful in its appearance, I insensibly looked away all my fears: but as fast as they gave way, new desires and strange wishes took place, and I melted as I gazed. The fire of nature, that had so long lain dormant or concealed, began to break out, and made me feel my sex for the first time. He had now changed his posture, and swam prone on his belly, striking out with his legs and arms; finer modeled than which could not have been cast, whilst his floating locks played over a neck and shoulders whose whiteness they delightfully set off. Then the luxuriant swell of flesh that rose from the small of his back, and terminates its double cope at where the thighs are set off, perfectly dazzled one with its watery glistening gloss.
“By this time I was so affected by this inward involution of sentiments, so softened by this sight, that now, betrayed into a sudden transition from extreme fears to extreme desires, I found these last so strong upon me, the heat of the weather too perhaps conspiring to exalt their rage, that nature almost fainted under them. Not that I so much as knew precisely what was wanting to me: my only thought was, that so sweet a creature, as this youth seemed to me, could only make me happy; but then, the little likelihood there was of compassing an acquaintance with him, or perhaps of ever seeing him again, dashed my desires, and turned them into torments. I was still gazing, with all the powers of my sight, on this bewitching object, when, in an instant, down he went. I had heard of such things as a cramp seizing on even the best swimmers, and occasioning their being drowned; and imagining this so sudden eclipse to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this unknown lad had given birth to, distracted me with the most killing terrors; insomuch, that my concern giving the wings, I flew to the door, opened it, ran down to the canal, guided thither by the madness of my fears for him, and the intense desire of being an instrument to save him, though I was ignorant how, or by what means to effect it: but was it for fears, and a passion so sudden as mine, to reason! All this took up scarce the space of a few moments. I had then just life enough to reach the green borders of the waterpiece, where wildly looking round for the young man, and missing him still, my fright and concern sunk me down in a deep swoon, which must have lasted me some time; for I did not come to myself, till I was roused out of it by a sense of pain that pierced me to the vitals, and awaked me to the the most surprising circumstance of finding myself not only in the arms of this very young gentleman I had been so solicitous to save; but taken at such an advantage in my unresisting condition, that he had actually completed his entrance into me so far, that weakened as I was by all the preceding conflicts of mind I had suffered, and struck dumb by the violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to cry out, nor the strength to disengage myself from his strenuous embraces, before, urging his point, he had forced his way and completely triumphed over my virginity, as he might now as well see by the streams of blood that followed his drawing out, as he had felt by the difficulties he had met with consummating his penetration. But the sight of the blood, and the sense of my condition, had (as he told me afterwards), since the ungovernable rage of his passion was somewhat appeased, now wrought so far on him, that at all risks, even of the worst consequences, he could not find in his heart to leave me, and make off, which he might easily have done. I still lay all discomposed in bleeding ruin, palpitating, speechless, unable to get off, and frightened, and fluttering like a poor wounded partridge, and ready to faint away again at the sense of what had befallen me. The young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing my hand, and with tears in his eyes, beseeching me to forgive him, and offering all the reparation in his power. It is certain that could I, at the instant of regaining my senses, have called out, or taken the bloodiest revenge, I would not be stuck at it; the violation was attended too with such aggravating circumstances, though he was ignorant of them, since it was to my concern for the preservation of his life, that I owed my ruin.
“But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme to another! and how little are they acquainted with the human heart who dispute it! I could not see this amiable criminal, so suddenly the first object of my love, and as suddenly of my just hate, on his knees, bedewing my hands with his tears, without relenting. He was still stark-naked, but my modesty had been already too much wounded, in essentials, to be so much shocked as I should have otherwise been with appearances only; in short, my anger ebbed so fast, and the tide of love returned so strong upon me, that I felt it a point of my own happiness to forgive him. The reproaches I made him were murmured in so soft a tone, my eyes met his with such glances, expressing more languor than resentment, that he could not but presume his forgiveness was at no desperate distance; but still he would not quit his posture of submission, till I had pronounced his pardon in form; which after the most fervent entreaties, protestations, and promises, I had not the power to withhold. On which, with the utmost marks of a fear of again offending, he ventured to kiss my lips, which I neither declined nor resented: but on my mild expostulation with him upon the barbarity of his treatment, he explained the mystery of my ruin, if not entirely to the clearance, at least much to the alleviation of his guilt, in the eyes of a judge so partial in his favour as I was grown.
“It seems that the circumstance of his going down, or sinking, which in my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for something very fatal, was no other than a trick of diving, which I had not ever heard, or at least attended o, the mention of: and he was so long-breathed at it, that in the few moments in which I ran out to save him, he had not yet emerged, before I fell into the swoon, in which, as he rose, seeing me extended on the bank, his first idea was, that some young woman was upon some design of frolic or diversion with him, for he knew I could not have fallen asleep there without his having seen me before: agreebly to which notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign of life, and still perplexed as he was what to think of the adventure, he took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into the summer-house, of which he observed the door open: there he laid me down on the couch, and tried, as he protested in good faith, by several means to bring me to myself again, till fired, as he said, beyond all bearing by the sight and touch of several parts of me, which were unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and the less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon being a feint, was not the very truth of the case; seduced then by this flattering notion, and overcome by the present, as he styled them, super-human temptations, combined with the solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he was not enough his own master not to make it. Leaving me then just only whilst he fastened the door, he returned with redoubled eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced, he ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more than the dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to roused me just in time enough to be witness of a triumph I was not able to defeat, and now scarce regretted: for as he talked, the tone of his voice sounded, methought, so sweetly in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and interesting an object to me, wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in the rising perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I lost all sense of the past injury. The young gentleman soon discerned the symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened looks, and hastening to receive the seal of it from my lips, pressed them tenderly to pass his pardon in the return of a kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of it being carried to my heart, and thence to my new discovered sphere of Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse him nothing. When now he managed his caresses and endearments so artfully, as to insinuate the most soothing consolations for the past pain and the most pleasing expectations of future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept my eyes from seeing his and rather declined them, I had a glimpse of that instrument of mischief which was now, obviously even to me, who had scarce had snatches of a comparative observation of it, resuming its capacity to renew it, and grew greatly alarming with its increase of size, as he bore it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff against one of my hands carelessly dropt; but then he employed such tender prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning passion of desire being now so strongly prompted by the engaging circumstances of the sight and incendiary touch of his naked glowing beauties, I yield at length at the force of the present impressions, and he obtained of my tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of pleasure left in the power of my poor person to bestow, after he had cropt its richest flower, during my suspension of life, and abilities to guard it.
“Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop; but I am so much in notion, that I could not if I would. I shall only add, however, that I got home without the least discovery, or suspicion of what had happened. I met my young ravisher several times after, whom I now passionately loved and who, though not of age to claim a small but independent fortune, would have married me; but as the accident that prevented it, and its consequences, which threw me on the public, contain matters too moving and serious to introduce at present, I cut short here.”
Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now took her turn to treat the company with her history. I have already hinted to you the graces of her person, than which nothing could be more exquisitely touching; I repeat touching, as a just distinction from striking, which is ever a less lasting effect, and more generally belongs to the fair complexions; but leaving that decision to every one’s taste, I proceed to give you Louisa’s narrative as follows:
“According to practical maxims of life, I ought to boast of my birth, since I owe it to pure love, without marriage; but this I know, it was scarce possible to inherit a stronger propensity to that cause of my being than I did. I was the rare production of the first essay of a journeyman cabinet-maker, on his master’s maid: the consequence of which was a big belly, and the loss of a place. He was not in circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen, and disposed of me to a poor relation in the country, to repair it by marrying a pastry-cook here in London, in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the complete ascendant he had given her over him, passed me for a child she had by her first husband. I had, on that footing, been taken home, and when this father-in-law died, and left my mother in tolerable circumstances, and without any children by him. As to my natural father, he had betaken himself to the sea; where, when the truth of things came out, I was told that he died, not immensely rich you may think, since he was no more than a common sailor. As I grew up, under the eyes of my mother, who kept on the business, I could not but see, in her severe watchfulness, the marks of a slip, which she did not care should be hereditary; but we no more choose our passions than our features or complexions, and the bent of mine was so strong to the forbidden pleasure, that it got the better, at length, of all her care and precaution. I was scarce, before that part which she wanted so much to keep out of harm’s way, made me feel its impatience to be taken notice of, and come into play; already had it put forth the signs of forwardness in the sprout of a soft down over it, which had often fluttered, and I might also say, grown under my constant touch and visitation, so pleased was I with what I took to be a kind of title to womanhood, that state I pined to be entered of, for the pleasures I conceived were annexed to it; and now the growing importance of that part to me, and the new sensations in it, demolished at once all my girlish play-things and amusements. Nature now pointed me strongly to more solid diversions, while all the stings of desire settled so fiercely in that little centre of them, that I could not mistake the spot I wanted a playfellow in.
“I now shunned all company in which there was no hopes of coming at the object of my longings, and used to shut myself up, to indulge in solitude some tender meditation on the pleasure I strongly perceived the overture of, in feeling and examining what nature assured me must be the chosen avenue, the gates for unknown bliss to enter at, that I panted after.
“But these meditations only increased my disorder, and blew the fire that consumed me. I was yet worse when, yielding at length to the insupportable irritations of the little fairy charm that tormented me, I seized it with my fingers, teazing it to no end. Sometimes, in the furious excitations of desire, I threw myself on the bed, spread my thighs abroad, and lay as it were expecting the longed-for relief, till finding my illusion, I shut and squeezed them together again, burning and fretting. In short, this develish thing, with its impetuous girds and itching fires, led me such a life, that I could neither, night or day, be at peace with it or myself. In time, however, I thought I had gained a prodigious prize, when figuring to myself that my fingers were something of the shape of what I pined for, I worked my way in with one of them with great agitation and delight; yet not without pain too did I deflower myself as far as it could reach; proceeding with such a fury of passion, in this solitary and last shift of pleasure, as extended me at length breathless on the bed in an amorous melting trance.
“But frequency of use dulling the sensation, I soon began to perceive that this work was but a paultry shallow expedient, that went but a little way to relieve me, and rather raised more flame than its dry and insignificant titillation could rightly appease.
“Man alone, I almost instinctively knew, as well as by what I had industriously picked up at weddings and christenings, was possessed of the only remedy that could reduce this rebellious disorder; but watched and overlooked as I was, how to come at it was the point, and that, to all appearance, an invincible one; not that I did not rack my brains and invention how at once to elude my mothers vigilance, and procure myself the satisfaction of my impetuous curiosity and longings for this mighty and untasted pleasure. At length, however, a singular chance did at once the work of a long course of alertness. One day that we had dined at an acquaintance over the way, together with a gentlewoman-lodger that occupied the first floor of our house, there started an indispensable necessity for my mother’s going down to Greenwich to accompany her: the party was settled, when I do not know what genius whispered me to plead a headache, which I certainly had not, against my being included in a jaunt that I had not the least relish for. The pretext, however, passed, and my mother, with much reluctance, prevailed with herself to go without me; but took particular care to see me safe home, where she consigned me into the hands of an old trusty maidservants, who served in the shop, for we had not a male creature in the house.
“As soon as she was gone, I told the maid I would go up and lie down on our lodger’s bed, mine not being made, with a charge to her at the same time not to disturb me, as it was only rest I wanted. This injunction probably proved of eminent service to me. As soon as I was got into the bedchamber, I unlaced my stays, and threw myself on the outside of the bedclothes, in all the loosest undress. Here I gave myself up to the old insipid privy shifts of my self-viewing, self-touching self-enjoying, in fine, to all the means of self knowledge I could devise, in search of the pleasure that fled before me, and tantalized with that unknown something that was out of my reach; thus all only served to enflame myself, and to provoke violently my desires, whilst the one thing needful to their satisfaction was not at hand, and I could have bit my finger for representing it so ill. After then wearying and fatiguing myself with grasping shadows, whilst that most sensible part of me disdained to content itself with less than realities, the strong yearnings, the urgent struggles of nature towards the melting relief, and the extreme self-agitations I had used to come at it, had wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the distraction of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a bystander could not have helped seeing all for love. And one there was it seems; for waking out of my very short slumber, I found my hand locked in that of a young man, who was kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his boldness: but that being a son to the lady to whom, this bed-chamber, he knew, belonged, he had slipped by the servant of the shop, as he supposed, unperceived, when finding me asleep, his first ideas were to withdraw; but that he had been fixed and detained there by a power he could better account for, than resist.
Continued. to LETTER THE SECOND part 3
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Notes;
1. During my visit to London for studies where we had an Old Ancestral Home, I stumbled on a family treasure. Apart from other things I also found a hump of books, diaries, and notes in the treasure which contained classic, Age-old, Erotic books, Novels, and Magazines probably collected by my Ancestors. They are all timeless and precious. They are a must-read for all erotica lovers.
2. The Original Authors of most of these Stories/Letters or Articles are long dead or Anonymous.
3. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure—popularly known as Fanny Hill is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel". It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history.
The book exemplifies the use of euphemism. The text has no "dirty words" or explicit scientific terms for body parts, but uses many literary devices to describe genitalia. For example, the vagina is sometimes referred to as "the nethermouth", which is also an example of psychological displacement.
4. All characters be read as of more than age of 18 years.
5. My sincere apologies to the author of the Novel and readers for editing, or modifying the underage content, if any, to make it suitable for publishing in Modern times.