Meant to coincide with this weekend’s Book Expo America on May 19-21 in Washington D.C., Playboy.com has named this week, “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” as the sexiest novel ever written.
The book, written by 18th century author, John Cleland, is part of the Playboy.com’s list of the “25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written.” The 1748 novel is about Fanny Hill, a woman who rises from poverty to middle class life as a wife and mother by becoming a prostitute.
Coming in second is the D.H. Lawrence 1928 classic, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” which outlines the story of an aristocratic woman who cares for an invalid husband and who goes on to have an affair with a game keeper at their estate.
The other books, their authors and their year of publication are:
3. “Tropic of Cancer,” by Henry Miller (1934); 4. “Story of O,” by Pauline Reage (1954); 5. “Crash,” by J.G. Ballard (1973); 6. “Interview with the Vampire,” by Anne Rice (1976); 7. “Portnoy’s Complaint,” by Phillip Roth (1969); 8. “The Magus,” By John Fowles (1965); 9. “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” by Haruki Murakami (1995); 10. “Endless Love,” by Scott Spencer (1979); 11. “Lolita,” by Vladimir Mabokov (1955); 12. “Carrie’s Story,” by Molly Weatherfield (1995); 13. “Fear of Flying,” by Erica Jong (1973); 14. “Peyton Place,” by Grace Metalious (1956); 15. “Story of the Eye,” by Georges Bataille (1928); 16. “The End of Alice,” by A.M. Homes (1996); 17. “Vox,” by Nicholson Baker (1992); 18. “Rapture,” by Susan Minot (2002); 19. “Singular Pleasures, by Harry Mathews (1983); 20. “In the Cut,” by Susanna Moore (1995); 21. “Brass,” by Helen Walsh (2004); 22. “Candy,” by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg (1959); 23. “Forever,” by Judy Blume (1975); 24. “An American Dream,” by Norman Mailer (1965); 25. “The Carpetbaggers,” by Harold Robbins (1961).
