Venus in the Cloister: or, the Nun in her Smock - Jean Barrin

Venus in the Cloister: or, the Nun in her Smock is a major work of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English erotica – an anti-clerical (or, more precisely, anti-catholic) fiction in dialogue form focusing on masturbation, flagellation, voyeurism, and female same-sex relations. It is a translation of a seventeenth-century French work, Vénus dans le cloître, ou la Religieuse en chemise (1683), which is usually attributed to Jean Barrin (1640-1718). The first English translation was published by Henry Rhodes in 1683 – the same year that the original was issued. It was also translated by Robert Samber (1682-1745) and published, in 1724 and 1725, by Edmund Curll, a London-based publisher notorious for issuing salacious books, hack-biographies, and literary piracies. Curll was prosecuted for libel for publishing Venus in the Cloister and John Henry Meibomius’ A Treatise of the Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs (1718). His case is significant because it set the precedent for obscene libel for the next two centuries.