SOURCE: "Matters of Sex," in Quadrant, Vol. VIII, No. 1, April-May 1964, pp. 49-52

In the following essay, Kramer argues that, contrary to the view of its supporters, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) does not meet literary criteria but is instead mere pornography born of Cleland's financial troubles.

'If you do me then justice, you will esteem me perfectly consistent in the incense I burn to Virtue. If I have painted Vice in all its gayest colours, if I have deck'd it with flowers, it has been solely in order to make the worthier, the solemner sacrifice of it to Virtue.' So speaks Fanny Hill in her final peroration to the virtuous reader, who (with a reviewer's conscience) has pursued her through all the mazes of Vice in order to arrive at this edifying revelation. So speaks too, it would appear, Mr Peter Quennell, who in...