Fanny Hill

Called the 'oldest profession', prositution and prostitutes themselves are one of the most popular themes for erotica writers. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland, is one of the most famous novels on this theme.

This work, a novel about a young girl who ends up in a London brothel, has been published in more editions than any other erotic literature in history.

Here is a passage in which Fanny reflects on the penis:

"The feel of that favourite piece of manhood has, in the very nature of it, something inimitably pathetic. Nothing can be dearer to the touch, nor can affect it with a more delicious sensation, that peculiar sceptre-member, which commands us all: but especially, my darling, elect from the face of the whole earth. And now, at its mightiest point of stiffness, it felt to me something so subduing, so active, so solid and agreeable, that I know not what name to give its singular impression: but the sentiment of consciousness of its belonging to my supremely beloved youth gave me so pleasing an agitation, and work'd so strongly on my soul, that it sent all its sensitive spirits to that organ of bliss in me, dedicated to its reception. There, concentring to a point, like rays in a magnifying glass, they glow'd, they burnt with the intensest heat; the springs of pleasure were, in short, wound up to such a pitch, I panted now with so exquisitely keen an appetite for the eminent enjoyment, that I was even sick with desire. I lay overwhelm'd, absorbed, lost in an abyss of joy, and dying of nothing but immoderate delight."

The art shown is by Paul Avril.