Pornography and Prostitutes’ Narratives in 18th-Century England: An Interview with Kathleen Lubey

On December 13 last year I interviewed Kathleen Lubey by phone as part of the research I am doing for this book about Samuel Johnson. The book will include a background chapter about various aspects of social life in London and England in the 18th century, and I was (and am) interested to include information about pornography and prostitution as well.

The audio link below (it’s about 7 minutes long) is a segment of the longer interview, in which Prof. Lubey discusses those topics and provides information about other works, both primary and secondary, as well.

Kathleen Lubey is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Centre at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. She is the author of Excitable Imaginations: Eroticism and Reading in Britain, 1660-1760, published in 2012, and one of her current projects is a book in progress called Pornography’s Discontents: Sex and Social Protest. The excerpt from my interview is used with her permission.