Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)Cleland, John
General
Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)
Cleland, John
England -- Fiction; Erotic fiction; Prostitutes -- Fiction
This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now threw myself,
having her reasons of state, respecting Mr. H...., for not appearing
too much in the thing herself, sent a friend of her’s, on the day
appointed for my removal, to conduct me to my new lodgings at a
brush-maker’s in E—— street, Covent Garden, the very next door to her
own house, where she had no conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings
that, by having been for several successions tenanted by ladies of
pleasures, the landlord of them was familiarized to their ways; and
provided the rent was paid, every thing else was as easy and commodious
as one could desire.
The fifty guineas promised me by Mr. H...., at his parting with me,
having been duly paid me, all my clothes and moveables chested up,
which were at least of two hundred pounds value, I had them conveyed
into a coach, where I soon followed them, after taking a civil leave of
the landlord and his family, with whom I had never lived in a degree of
familiarity enough to regret the removal; but still, the very
circumstance of its being a removal, drew tears from me. I left, too, a
letter of thanks for Mr. H...., from whom I concluded myself, as I
really was, irretrievably separated.
My maid I had discharged the day before, not only because I had her of
Mr. H...., but that I suspected her of having some how or other been
the occasion of his discovering me, in revenge, perhaps, for my not
having trusted her with him.
We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so handsomely furnished,
nor so showy as those I left, were to the full as convenient, and at
half price, though on the first floor. My trunks were safely landed,
and stowed in my apartments, where my neighbour, and now gouvernante,
Mrs. Cole, was ready with my landlord to receive me, to whom she took
care to set me out in the most favourable light, that of one from whom
there was the clearest reason to expect the regular payment of his
rent: all the cardinal virtues attributed to me, would not have had
half the weight of that recommendation alone.
I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandoned to my own conduct,
and turned loose upon the town, to sink or swim, as I could manage with
the current of it; and what were the consequences, together with the
number of adventures which befell me in the exercise of my new
profession, will compose the mater of another letter: for surely it is
high time to put a period! to this.
I am,
MADAM,
Yours, etc., etc., etc.
THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER
LETTER THE SECOND
Madam,
If I have delayed the sequel of my history, it has been purely to allow
myself a little breathing time not without some hopes, that, instead of
pressing me to a continuation, you would have acquitted me of the task
of pursuing a confession, in the course of which my self-esteem has so
many wounds to sustain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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