Editing Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure: New Directions

This essay envisages what a new scholarly edition of John Cleland’s notorious novel, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748 – 49), might provide. Drawing on digital resources such as ECCO, it could readily refer to the full range of Cleland’s numerous publications, and taking advantage of a concordance to the novel published in 1988, it could explore Cleland’s remarkably inventive use of metaphors and similes. It could also draw on his collected correspondence, of which a new edition is forthcoming. In addition, such an edition would give full attention to the novel’s murky and protracted publication history.