John Cleland

This article describes the English writer. For the Scottish car racer , see John Cleland (racing driver) .

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure , title page of the first edition (1749)

John Cleland (* 1709 in Kingston upon Thames , Surrey , † January 23, 1789 in London ) was an English writer and is mainly known as the author of the erotic novel Fanny Hill .

childhood

Cleland was the first child of William Cleland, a Scottish Army officer, and his wife, Lucy Du Pass.

Career

John Cleland's life was changeable, he only attended Westminster School for two years. From 1728 to 1740 he was in the service of the East India Company in Bombay , first as a soldier, later as an administrative clerk. It is likely that his best-known work, Fanny Hill, was partly created at this time. In August 1741 John Cleland returned to London for family reasons, where his father died shortly afterwards on September 21 .

A financial decline followed; due to high debts, John Cleland was taken to Newgate Prison in London on February 23, 1748 . In order to be released from prison, he accepted a small offer from publisher Ralph Griffiths, who promised to pay Cleland 20 guineas for an erotic novel.

Fanny Hill

Cleland completed his erotic novel Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in prison . Part 1 appeared on November 21, 1748 , Part 2 on February 14, 1749 , so Cleland could actually leave prison on March 6, 1749 . Because of the publication of Fanny Hill he had to appear again in court, but was not convicted, only warned and even received a pension of 100 pounds per year from Lord Granville because he could prove his financial distress as a reason for publication.

Late work

John Cleland later published several works such as Memoirs of a coxcomb ( 1751 ), The surprises of love ( 1764 , four romantic stories) and The woman of honor ( 1768 ), although written by his literary contemporaries such as James Boswell , David Garrick , and Tobias George Smollett were recognized, but not so remembered by posterity as Fanny Hill , which was later banned in the USA (see: History of censorship ). Even through the publication of treatises and tracts as well as unsuccessful plays and through his journalistic work, he could not gain further fame.

literature

• William H. Epstein: John Cleland: Images of a life . Columbia University Press, New York 1974
• Hal Gladfelder : Fanny Hill in Bombay: the making & unmaking of John Cleland , Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4214-0490-5

Web links

Wikisource: John Cleland  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about John Cleland in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by John Cleland at Zeno.org .