Author: John Cleland
John Cleland was born in 1710 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. He was the first child of William Cleland a Scots army officer. He attended Westminster School for only two years from the ages of 10-12. From 1728 to 1740 he had a career with the East India Company in Bombay first as a foot soldier and later as an administrator. He began writing Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure in 1730 at the age of 19 or 20. Cleland returned to London in August 1741 and his father died the next month, on 21 September. In the following years he fell heavily into debt and was imprisoned for this in the notorious Fleet Prison. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, vol. 1 was published on 21 November 1748 to be followed by vol. 2 on 14 February 1749. He was released from prison in March 1749. Cleland was not prosecuted following the publication of Fanny Hill despite the complaints of several bishops and other church dignitaries, but he was summoned to appear before the Privy Council, where he pleaded poverty and was warned to be more careful in future. Lord Oranville, a member of the Privy Council, arranged a pension of ·100 per year for Cleland perhaps impressed by his arguments and poverty, and possibly wishing thus to be able to exert a degree of control over his pen. His mother died in May 1763. Cleland never married and was thought by some to be a homosexual. John Cleland died at his home in Petty France, Westminster, London on 23 January 1789 at the age of 78.
