National Network for Equitable Library Service

The hilarious story of Fanny Hill and her erotic exploits in London shocked the religious and literary hierarchy, who condemned the book, thus immediately increasing demand for it. The story chronicles the life of an 18th-century maiden who, left without parents, journeys to the big city to try life on her own. Despite its highly charged erotic content and vehement criticism from the Bishop of London in 1749 as "an open insult upon religion and good manners", this romp through societies high and low contains not a single obscene word.