Fanny Hill, one of the most popular novels of the 18th century, traces the rise of its heroine from prostitution to middle-class respectability. Condemned in its own time on grounds of indecency, the book was the subject of several law suits until as recently as the 1960s. For today's reader, the work holds as much fascination as when it was first published not only as the foremost example of English erotic fiction, but as a literary classic in its own right.