The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs Of Fanny Hill, by John Cleland

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Title: Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)

Author: John Cleland

Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25305]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF FANNY HILL ***

Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF FANNY HILL

By John Cleland

_A new and genuine edition from the original text (London, 1749)._

PARIS - ISIDORE LISEUX

Of this Edition, privately printed, there are 350 numbered copies, of
which this is number 111.

LETTER THE FIRST

I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your
desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I
shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I
emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of
love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth,
and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and
affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable
one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been
tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of
the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who,
looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at
as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.

Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give
you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare
you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with the same liberty
that I led it.

Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as
take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint
situations such as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of
violating those laws of decency that were never made for such unreserved
intimacies as ours; and you have too much sense, too much knowledge of
the originals, to sniff prudishly and out of character at the pictures
of them. The greatest men, those of the first and most leadi