The eighteenth century saw profound changes in the way prostitution was represented in literary and visual culture. This collection of essays focuses on the variety of ways that the sex trade was represented in popular culture of the time, across different art forms and highlighting contradictory interpretations.

Introduction: Venal Bodies - Prostitutes and Eighteenth-Century Culture, Markman Ellis, Ann Lewis; Chapter 1 Classifying the Prostitute in Eighteenth-Century France, Ann Lewis; Chapter 2 In Her Own Words: an Eighteenth-Century Madam Tells Her Story, Kathryn Norberg; Chapter 3 'All the World Knows Her Storie': Aphra Behn and the Duchess of Mazarin, Claudine van Hensbergen; Chapter 4 Marie Petit's Persian Adventure (1705-8): the Eastward Travels of a French 'Concubine', Katherine MacDonald; Chapter 5 'A First-rate Whore': Prostitution and Empowerment in the Early Eighteenth Century, Lena Olsson; Chapter 6 Prostitutes and Erotic Performances in Eighteenth-Century Paris, Thomas Wynn; Chapter 7 Visible Prostitutes: Mandeville, Hogarth and 'A Harlot's Progress', Charlotte Grant; Chapter 8 The Narrative Sources of Candide's Paquette, Edward Langille; Chapter 9 The Prostitute as Neo-Manager: Sade's Juliette and the New Spirit of Capitalism, Olivier Delers; Chapter 10 Figuring the London Magdalen House: Mercantilist Hospital, Sentimental Asylum or Proto-Evangelical Penitentiary?, Mary Peace; Chapter 11 Mothers and Others: Sexuality and Maternity in the Histories of Some of the Penitents in the Magdalen-House (1760), Jennie Batchelor; Chapter 12 Making a Living by 'Indecency': Life Stories of Prostitutes in Christiania, Norway, Johanne Bergkvist; Chapter 13 Male Prostitution and the Emergence of the Modern Sexual System: Eighteenth-Century London, Randolph Trumbach;