--- title: Fanny Hill Metadescription: Section by section summaries of what happens in all twenty-eight, each one linking straight to the full text. author: John Cleland sections: 28 canonical: https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill --- Token estimate: ~2,400 # Fanny Hill John Cleland - [Section One](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-01) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-01.md)) - Fanny's parents die of smallpox, Esther Davis abandons her at a London inn, and an intelligence office puts her into Mrs Brown's service. - [Section Two](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-02) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-02.md)) - Fanny is installed at Mrs Brown's as a companion, and her bedfellow Phoebe spends the first night teaching her hands what pleasure is. - [Section Three](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-03) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-03.md)) - Dressed for market, Fanny is shown to the elderly Mr Crofts, who assaults her on the settee until her screams bring the maid Martha up. - [Section Four](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-04) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-04.md)) - A fever reprieves Fanny and Crofts is jailed for debt, and from a dark closet she watches Mrs Brown entertain a young horse grenadier. - [Section Five](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-05) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-05.md)) - Phoebe sets Fanny at a crevice to watch Polly Phillips and her Genoese merchant, which cures her fear of what a man might do to her. - [Section Six](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-06) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-06.md)) - Fanny finds Charles asleep in the parlour, elopes with him to Chelsea, and gives up her maidenhead there in more pain than she expected. - [Section Seven](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-07) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-07.md)) - Fanny wakes first and studies the sleeping Charles at length, and afterwards learns his history and the grandmother who funds him. - [Section Eight](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-08) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-08.md)) - Charles and a lawyer frighten Mrs Brown into giving up Fanny's box, and the pair take lodgings with Mrs Jones for eleven happy months. - [Section Nine](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-09) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-09.md)) - Charles is shipped to the South Seas by his father, Fanny miscarries, and Mrs Jones's debts deliver her insensible to Mr H. - [Section Ten](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-10) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-10.md)) - A supper and a bridal posset reconcile Fanny to Mr H, who keeps her all night and sets her up as a kept mistress with a maid of her own. - [Section Eleven](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-11) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-11.md)) - Fanny watches Mr H take her maid through a knot hole in the door, and plans her revenge on his young country servant Will. - [Section Twelve](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-12) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-12.md)) - Will examines Fanny by daylight and has her again, and after a bath and a night's sleep she finds herself unaltered and sends for him. - [Section Thirteen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-13) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-13.md)) - Mr H catches Fanny with Will and turns her off with fifty pieces, and Mrs Cole takes her in and lodges her beside her Covent Garden shop. - [Section Fourteen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-14) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-14.md)) - Fanny joins Mrs Cole's household of three girls and agrees to sell a counterfeit maidenhead, and Emily tells how she lost her own at an inn. - [Section Fifteen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-15) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-15.md)) - Harriet tells how she watched a youth swim naked, fainted believing him drowned, and woke to find he had already had her on the couch. - [Section Sixteen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-16) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-16.md)) - Louisa tells of her bastard birth and her early solitary experiments, and how the lodger's son found her asleep and finished them. - [Section Seventeen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-17) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-17.md)) - The revels begin with a couch fetched into the room, and Louisa and then Harriet are enjoyed in turn in front of the whole company. - [Section Eighteen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-18) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-18.md)) - Emily is taken standing by her stout gallant, then Fanny is stripped bare before the room and enjoyed twice by her own young gentleman. - [Section Nineteen](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-19) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-19.md)) - Fanny is paid and pronounced initiated, her gallant is carried off to Ireland, and a pale stranger follows her round a fruit shop. - [Section Twenty](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-20) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-20.md)) - The stranger proves to be Norbert, a hunter of maidenheads, and Mrs Cole sells him Fanny's counterfeit one for three hundred guineas. - [Section Twenty-One](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-21) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-21.md)) - Fanny uses Mrs Cole's sponge of false blood to convince Norbert, whose feeble powers later send her off with a sailor to a tavern. - [Section Twenty-Two](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-22) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-22.md)) - Norbert goes to Bath and dies there of a fever, and Fanny takes on Mr Barville, whipping him with birch rods at his own request. - [Section Twenty-Three](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-23) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-23.md)) - Barville whips Fanny in his turn, an old gentleman pays merely to comb her hair, and Emily is carried to a bagnio by a man wanting a boy. - [Section Twenty-Four](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-24) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-24.md)) - A broken axle strands Fanny at an inn, where she spies two young men through a hole and knocks herself senseless trying to raise the house. - [Section Twenty-Five](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-25) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-25.md)) - Louisa takes Dick, the idiot flower seller, upstairs to satisfy her curiosity, and gets a great deal more than she had bargained for. - [Section Twenty-Six](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-26) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-26.md)) - A bathing party on the Thames, then Emily is reclaimed by her parents, Mrs Cole retires, and Fanny meets an old gentleman in the fields. - [Section Twenty-Seven](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-27) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-27.md)) - The old gentleman makes Fanny his heiress and dies, and on the road north she hears Charles's voice at an inn and faints into his arms. - [Section Twenty-Eight](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-28) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-28.md)) - Fanny and Charles pass the night as man and wife, she gives up her fortune to him, he marries her, and the letter closes on her moral. --- ## Forthcoming **The Rise of Lucia** by Dan Edwards The nineteen-year-old Emmeline Smith, before she became the formidable Lucia. A prequel to E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series. [Read an extract](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/mapp-and-lucia-prequel/chapter-01) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/mapp-and-lucia-prequel/chapter-01.md)) ## Articles - [Writing advice from Jane Austen's teacher](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/writing-advice-from-jane-austens-teacher) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/writing-advice-from-jane-austens-teacher.md)) - Hugh Blair wrote the composition textbook Jane Austen's generation learned from. His rules for clear, unaffected prose read like a modern style guide. - [The sex scenes from Fanny Hill](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/fanny-hill-sex-scenes) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/fanny-hill-sex-scenes.md)) - The eleven substantial sex scenes from Fanny Hill (1748), verbatim and in order. Explicit throughout, but Cleland never uses a coarse word. 14,000 words.