The Whore's Story: Women, Pornography, and the British Novel, 1684-1830  

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The Whore's Story: Women, Pornography, and the British Novel, 1684-1830 is a book by Bradford Keyes Mudge.

On earthquakes

"On February 8, 1749 (actually 1750), London shook. Exactly one month later, on March 8, the ground beneath London trembled again. While “the reasons for [this] divine wrath were temporarily unclear, and, predictably, explanations varied,” Thomas Sherlock, the Bishop of London, provided elucidation on the matter (Mudge 214). These earthquakes, Sherlock pronounced, have been “sent to punish bawdy books and prints, in particular, those ‘vile books’ that relate the history of whores” (Mudge 214). Although inclusive of all material considered pornographic and obscene circulating throughout Britain at the time, Sherlock’s proclamation specifically took aim at John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. In an appeal to the first duke of Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Sherlock implored Holles to “‘stop the progress of this vile book, which is an open insult upon Religion and good manners, and a reproach to the Honour of the Government, and the Law of the Country’” (Mudge 214). For Sherlock, Memoirs posed a considerable threat to order, stability, and the very social structure of Britain. "[1]

Blurb

"This fresh and persuasively argued book examines the origins of pornography in Britain and presents a comprehensive overview of women's role in the evolution of obscene fiction. Carefully monitoring the complex interconnections between three related debates--that over the masquerade, that over the novel, and that over prostitution--Mudge contextualizes the growing literary need to separate good fiction from bad and argues that that process was of crucial importance to the emergence of a new, middle-class state. Looking closely at sermons, medical manuals, periodical essays, and political tracts as well as poetry, novels, and literary criticism, The Whore's Story tracks the shifting politics of pleasure in eighteenth-century Britain and charts the rise of modern, pornographic sensibilities."

See also

• British novel
• Whore dialogue