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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The first pornographic novel in English


Fanny Hill, or the Memoirs of a a Woman of Pleasure, is considered to be the first pornographic novel in English.

John Cleland, a young East India company employee, wrote the novel as a response to a friend who challenged him to write about a prostitute without using a single obscene word. 

The Boston Globe reports that the novel was a success and its sales got Cleland out of debtor's prison, but ironically landed him back in another kind of imprisonment on charges of obscenity.

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