John Cleland

Peter Byrne (Independent Scholar - North America)

Ed. by Janet Todd, University of Cambridge
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

Born 1709
Died 1789
Activity 1749-1787

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic/ Historian
Novelist
Philologist
Playwright / Dramatist
Satirist

Other

Lawyer/ Barrister/ Solicitor
Physician/ Doctor
Soldier

Resources

Cleland's Works

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The dearth of biographical information about John Cleland (1710-1789) is partly due to the scandal surrounding the novel for which he is usually remembered,

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

(more commonly, and inaccurately, known as “Fanny Hill”, after the main character); many of his contemporaries and their biographers mentioned him briefly and with embarrassment or distaste. Even the recent reassessment of the work has not corrected this situation fully; the only significant biographical study remains William Epstein's

John Cleland: Images of a Life

(1974), from which much of the following is derived.

John Cleland was born in 1710 in Kingston, Surrey, the oldest of three children (brother Henry b. 1711, sister Charlotte Lucy, uncertain birth-date). His family, in the words of Robert

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1849 words

Citation: Byrne, Peter. "John Cleland". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 October 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=915, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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