4. Fanny Hill - John Cleland (1748)
Erotic classic based on the sexual adventures of the titular heroine. Her parents die when she is 15 and she is led into working in a brothel as a prostitute. She runs off with Charles, a nobleman, and makes sweet sweet love for many days with him. She tries to become a lady but after a number of months gets pregnant. Charles disappears. His father has sent him to the South Seas and he win't be back for three years. Fanny miscarries with the shock of this news. Back she goes to prostitution. Fanny meets Mr H and concludes you can have sex without love. He sets her up in an apartment and keeps her in fine style. Mr H is shagging Fanny's maid so she shags his hung like a donkey servant in retaliation. When Mr H finds out about this, he throws Fanny out where she returns to the oldest profession in the world - prostitution. Fanny continues with a life of vice - participating in orgies, encountering homosexuality, shagging geriatric men, having anonymous sex with a sailor, and entering the world of BDSM. the novel ends on a very happy note as Fanny is reunited with Charles. Her heels didn't get round with walking! Upon first publication, author Cleland was arrested for 'corrupting the King's subjects'. He beat the rap by disowning the book in court. However, black market copies flourished. The book was banned in America in 1821 for obscenity. It appeared in Britain in 1963 when a man called Ralph Gold sold it in his store. Gold and publishers Mayflower were taken to court for this, but it was more of an attack on Gold selling the book than the book itself. In the 1964 trial the book was proved to be more bawdy than pornographic, an important historical document, but a flagellation scene enabled the authorities to keep a lid on the book. The unexpurgated version of Fanny Hill was finally published in Britain in 1970. By then society had undergone a seismic shift in general permissiveness and they were ready to welcome randy Fanny and her steamy exploits.