Smith & Taylor Classics is an imprint of Unnamed Press, founded in 2024, combining Unnamed’s mission to uplift the unlikely and unexpected from around the world with editors Allison Miriam Smith and Brandon Taylor’s shared love of craftsmanship and classic literature. Featuring both celebrated and lesser-known authors from the past, S&T seeks to reintroduce titles that pushed the boundaries of their time, and whose themes continue to resonate today. Each edition features a conversational afterword between two esteemed readers: established writers, critics, satirists, academics, scientists and more.

John Cleland – Fanny Hill or, Memoirs Of A Woman Of Pleasure

Banned from publication in the United States until 1966 for its assumed obscenity, immorality, and lack of literary merit, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749), is a novel considered to be the first original English prose erotica. This is the tale of the titular Fanny Hill, told to us in her own letters with “stark naked truth.” Young, orphaned, and naïve, she recounts her early days of prostitution in bawdy eighteenth-century London and her dramatic rise to respectability. An important work of political, social, and sexual parody and philosophy, the author himself was imprisoned at the time of publication for his depictions of sexual “deviance” as an act of pleasure rather than simply shameful. Fanny Hill deserves its place in continued publication not only for its role in securing rights for erotica, but for its surprisingly modern, explicit, and complicated depictions of sex, love-making, money-talk, and homosexuality.

This uncensored version is set from the 1749 edition and includes a new introduction by Chelsea G. Summers, as well as a conversational afterword between Summers and Jessica Stoya.

Chelsea G. Summers is a former academic and college professor with Ph.D. training in eighteenth-century British literature. A freelance writer, Chelsea’s work has appeared in New York Magazine, Vogue, The New Republic, Racked, The Guardian, and other fine publications. She splits her time between New York and Stockholm, Sweden. A Certain Hunger was her first novel. 

Jessica Stoya has been a pornographer since 2006 and a writer since 2012. She has written for the New York Times, the Guardian, Playboy, and others. She has acted in Serbian sci-fi feature Ederlezi Rising and two of Dean Haspiel’s plays in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Anise K. Strong – Prostitutes In The Roman World

“Two thousand years ago, an aristocratic Roman matron named Vistalia faced a trial for adultery. Vistalia was notorious for conducting multiple extramarital affairs, but her husband, Titidius Labeo, refused to divorce her. Eventually, the Emperor Tiberius himself accused her of adultery, a crime punishable by exile to a remote island. Vistalia responded to this charge by publicly registering herself as a common prostate, since prostitutes were legally incapable of committing adultery.” So begins the introduction to Prostitutes And Matrons In The Roman World  by Anise K. Strong. This is the first substantial account of Roman concubines and courtesans. Exploring the blurred line between proper matron and wicked prostitute, it illuminates the lives of sexually promiscuous women like Messalina and Clodia, as well as prostitutes with hearts of gold who saved Rome and their lovers in times of crisis. It also offers insights into the multiple functions of erotic imagery and the circumstances in which prostitutes could play prominent roles in Roman public and religious life. Tracing the evolution of social stereotypes and concepts of virtue and vice in Ancient Rome, this volume reveals the range of life choices and sexual activity, beyond the traditional binary depiction of wives or prostitutes, that were available to Roman women.

Although this well-researched book with scores of footnotes and references could be classified as academic, don’t let that dissuade you from enjoying Ms. Strong’s terrific writing and her slightly droll observations. Anise K. Strong an avid feminist is an Assistant Professor of History at Western Michigan University.