PAINTINGS and MALE FANTASY LEAD TO PUBLICITY and THE LAVISH LIFE OF A COURTESAN

In a chapter on the real lives of London prostitutes, author Barbara White writes that there's a possibility that Fanny Murray, a very young woman, was infected with venereal disease and taking a cure might have used all her resources and ended her as a streetwalker as a choice, rather than debtor's prison. The descriptions of the conditions in which these women lived suggest that there were very many levels of prostitution, and the lowest were also pickpockets and associating with a rough criminal class. If so, she might have had to 'service' 100 to 200 men a day. It's possible, though again White suggests it might also not be true, that she was at one point suicidal.

This is similar to today's abducted young sex slaves who are trafficked.  It's difficult to believe anyone who survives could be well psychologically. 

But in 1745 her luck changed and she met John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwhich, who had lost a very long term mistress he was happy with when she was murdered. He would go on to have another very long term mistress as well but Fanny and John had their moment, and this association brought her up in the world. (Notes from Page 41NaN)

In 1744, the Earl had started The Divan Club for a small group who were travelers to the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), and which was short-lived. Rumors were that it was not a scholarly gentleman's club but a sex club. A bare-breasted painting which might have been of Fanny Murray - or one of her peer prostitutes - decorated the clubhouse. That an artist was commissioned to paint such a portrait is perhaps indicative of the start of a career in which Fanny would cater to the elite, her time as a Courtesan.

This was a time when gentlemen not only memorialized beauties in art work but also by writing poetry about them and even made lists of the most beautiful women in England to share. (Well, they didn't have the Miss America pageant.) Art, poetry, and lists like these served to promote her as desirable. As men with money came around, Fanny's character became judged as less virtuous(!) as it had been assumed. She did not hesitate to purchase fine things for herself.(Notes from Page 51 Nan)

In the search for truth about Fanny Murray, there is much rumor, much fantasy.

Then a man named Harris came up with Harris List, which was like a 18th century database of prostitutes, and somehow he came up with 400 names.  He listed their names, where they could be found, and what their sexual specialties were. (One wonders how he knew all this.)  In 1747, when she was 19, he included Fanny but it's considered a fabrication.  Fanny M was listed as new to the scene and it was also suggested that she would be ideal for a Jewish man, inferred only a Jew could afford all the things she demanded. She had been in London as a prostitute for at least four years at that point. Was he doing her a favor? Harris may have been a pimp with a 'stable' of 100. He claimed his women had to be 'enrolled' and to undergo medical exams to prove they were disease free and so on. He had a 'club' for women in which, supposedly, a hundred enrolled women drank and awaited a good time.

(Notes from pages 52-53 NaN)

As a Courtesan with enough money to live lavishly, Fanny was finally in position to choose who she would allow into her life and under what terms. Interestingly, she aimed to help those prostitutes who had not been able to avoid the venereal diseases by patronizing a hospital, Lock Hospital near Hyde Park Corner and it was controversial. (page 54 NaN0

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