Venus in the Cloister: or, the Nun in her Smock

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.

Like earlier seventeenth-century erotica such as Michel Millot’s L’École des Filles (1655; translated as The School of Venus (1680)) and Nicolas Chorier’s Satyra Sotadica (1660; translated as A Dialogue Between a Married Lady and a Maid (1740) and as The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea (1890)), Venus in the Cloister is a whore dialogue – a popular genre in the early modern period representing conversations between a sexually experienced older woman and a maiden – and a vehicle for disseminating radical ideas about sex and religion. It comprises a series of conversations in which a sexually experienced nun, Sister Angelica, seduces a younger, inexperienced nun, Sister Agnes, and instructs her in sexual and philosophical matters. The latter’s perspective on sex and religion is gradually transformed and ostensibly liberated. Representations of sex and desire are mobilised to satirise repressive aspects of religious life and promote a philosophy of sexual experimentation and sexual pleasure.

This Birchgrove Press edition of Venus in the Cloister is based on Curll’s 1725 edition.