John Cleland (baptised September 24, 1709一January 23, 1789) was an English novelist most famous and infamous as the author of Fanny Hill:or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. John Cleland was the oldest

son of William Cleland (1673/4一1741) and Lucy Cleland. He was born in Kingston upon Thames in Surrey but grew up in London, where his father was first an officer in the British Army and then a civil servant.

William Cleland was a friend to Alexander Pope, and Lucy Cleland was a friend or acquaintance of both Pope, Viscount Bolin沙roke, Chester-field, and Horace Walpole. The family possessed good finances and moved among the finest literary and artistic circles of London. John Cleland entered Westminster School in 1721, but he left or was expelled in 1723. His departure was not for financial reasons, but whatever misbehavior or allegation had led to his departure is unknown. Historian J. H.Plumb speculates that Cleland's puckish and quarrelsome nature was to blame, but, whatever caused Cleland to leave, he entered the British East India Company after leaving school. He began as a soldier and worked his way up into the civil service of the company and lived in Bombay from 1728 to 1740. He returned to London when recalled by his father,who was dying. Upon William's death, the estate went to Lucy for administration. She, in turn, did not choose to support John (and Cleland's two brothers had finished at Westminster and gone on to support themselves).

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, better known as Fanny Hill, is one of the most notorious texts in English literature. As recently as 1963 an unexpurgated edition was the subject of a trial, yet in the eighteenth century John Cleland's open celebration of sexual enjoyment was a best selling novel.

Fanny's story, as she falls into prostitution and then rises to respectability, takes the form of a confession that is vividly coloured by copious and explicit physiological details of her carnal adventures. The moral outrage that this has always provoked has only recently been countered by serious critical appraisal.