![[CLELAND, John (1709-1789).] Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. From the Original Corrected Edition. With a Set of Elegant Engravings. London: n.p., 1780.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2016/CKS/2016_CKS_12140_0423_000(cleland_john_memoirs_of_a_woman_of_pleasure_from_the_original_correcte082719).jpg?w=1)
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[CLELAND, John (1709-1789).] Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. From the Original Corrected Edition. With a Set of Elegant Engravings. London: n.p., 1780.
2 volumes in 1, 12° (179 x 105mm); vol.1: [1]f., 152pp.; vol.2: [1]f., 167pp. Frontispiece and 34 engraved plates [perhaps of 35], probably by Gravelot. (Without the half-titles, if issued; possibly lacking plate 10 in volume 1, if issued; occasional spotting.) 19th-century tree calf, flat spine gilt-ruled in compartments, marbled endpapers (endpapers renewed).
THE MOST COMPLETE COPY KNOWN FROM A RARE EARLY EDITION FEATURING THE SUPPRESSED HOMOSEXUAL EPISODE. This copy is a rare survival from an important edition of the most celebrated erotic novel in English. Over the course of its long, clandestine printing history Fanny Hill was the object of constant prosecution. Editions were systematically suppressed, and often destroyed. As a result any 18th-century illustrated edition is very rare. The homosexual passage appears only in the very rare first edition of 1749, the 1766 edition (known in only one copy), and this edition, before being resurrected by Isidore Liseux’s translation into French published in 1888. The contentious episode begins on page 115 of volume 2, and opens: ‘For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other’s breeches...’ After the first edition was prosecuted, Cleland quickly published a heavily expurgated edition (1750) in which this passage is redacted. But even publishers of piracies of the much racier first edition were sufficiently wary of consequences that they willingly suppressed this homosexual scene. WorldCat locates no copies of this edition in any public collections. Only one copy is recorded at auction: the defective Fekete copy (sold, Christie’s, 18 November 2014, lot 56; lacking six leaves and 21 plates).
2 volumes in 1, 12° (179 x 105mm); vol.1: [1]f., 152pp.; vol.2: [1]f., 167pp. Frontispiece and 34 engraved plates [perhaps of 35], probably by Gravelot. (Without the half-titles, if issued; possibly lacking plate 10 in volume 1, if issued; occasional spotting.) 19th-century tree calf, flat spine gilt-ruled in compartments, marbled endpapers (endpapers renewed).
THE MOST COMPLETE COPY KNOWN FROM A RARE EARLY EDITION FEATURING THE SUPPRESSED HOMOSEXUAL EPISODE. This copy is a rare survival from an important edition of the most celebrated erotic novel in English. Over the course of its long, clandestine printing history Fanny Hill was the object of constant prosecution. Editions were systematically suppressed, and often destroyed. As a result any 18th-century illustrated edition is very rare. The homosexual passage appears only in the very rare first edition of 1749, the 1766 edition (known in only one copy), and this edition, before being resurrected by Isidore Liseux’s translation into French published in 1888. The contentious episode begins on page 115 of volume 2, and opens: ‘For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other’s breeches...’ After the first edition was prosecuted, Cleland quickly published a heavily expurgated edition (1750) in which this passage is redacted. But even publishers of piracies of the much racier first edition were sufficiently wary of consequences that they willingly suppressed this homosexual scene. WorldCat locates no copies of this edition in any public collections. Only one copy is recorded at auction: the defective Fekete copy (sold, Christie’s, 18 November 2014, lot 56; lacking six leaves and 21 plates).
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