Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic romance novel by British author E. L. James. It became the first installment in the Fifty Shades novel series that follows the deepening relationship between a college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. It contains explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of sexual practices involving BDSM.

Erika Mitchell, known by her pen name E. L. James, is a British author. She wrote the best-selling Fifty Shades series of erotic romance novels, which spawned a multimedia franchise including a film trilogy of the same name. Prior to this, she wrote the Twilight fan fiction "Master of the Universe" that served as the basis for the Fifty Shades series under the web name Snowqueens Icedragon. In 2019 she published her first book unconnected with the fictional world of Fifty Shades, The Mister, to negative critical reaction.