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Written in 1749 while Cleland was in debtor's prison in London, it is considered the first " erotic" novel and its publication caused a furor. Immediately upon its release, the Church of England asked the British Secretary of State to "stop the progress of this vile Book, which is an open insult upon Religion and good manners." As a result, Cleland was arrested and charged with "corrupting the King's subjects."
Nonetheless, copies of the book were sold "underground," and the book eventually made its way to the United States where, in 1821, it was banned for obscenity.
In 1963, G. B. Putnam published the book under the title John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure which also was immediately banned for obscenity. The publisher challenged the ban in court.
In a landmark decision in 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Memoirs v. Massachusetts that the banned novel did not meet the Roth standard for obscenity.
Fanny Hill is still banned in AustraliaAustralia is the sixth-largest country in the world (geographically), the only one to occupy an entire continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia. Australia includes the island of Tasmania, which is an Australian State. Its neighbouring count.