Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure—popularly known as Fanny Hill (an anglicisation of the Latin mons veneris, mound of Venus)—is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel". It is one of the most prosecuted and banned books in history. John Cleland (24 September 1709 – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist best known as the author of Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. James Boswell called him "a sly, old malcontent".