Image copyright Hansons Auctioneers

A 19th Century copy of a work described as "the most famous banned book in the country" is to be sold at auction.

Fanny Hill, by John Cleland, was first published in 1748 and has been described as the first example of "pornographic prose" in English.

The work was still banned in the UK up to the 1960s, but a copy dating from about 1880 was found by antiquarian book expert Jim Spencer.

It will be sold at Hansons Auctioneers in Etwall, Derbyshire, on 22 January.

Fanny Hill - also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - tells the story of a young woman from Lancashire who moves to London and becomes a prostitute.

Instantly notorious, it led to Cleland being summoned by the Privy Council and the book being banned for its perceived licentiousness.

The novel was also banned in a number of other countries, with Singapore only lifting it in 2015.

Mr Spencer found a newspaper cutting from the 1960s detailing how about 20,000 copies of the book had been seized by police, with Scotland Yard warning booksellers they risked prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 if they sold it.

Gareth Powell, then joint managing director of Mayflower Books, which was publishing the new version, had said Fanny Hill was "the most famous banned book in the country" and the public were "ready for it".

"Clearly, it was still banned in the UK in the 1960s," said Mr Spencer.

"They called it the Swinging 60s but clearly erotic literature like this was viewed as too obscene to be seen by the masses half a century ago.

"These days, after the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey, it's probably viewed as rather tame. It demonstrates just how much times have changed."

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