The Secret Diaries Of Miss Anne Lister: Vol. 1: I Know My Own Heart (Virago Modern Classics)

Product Information

As the bitterly cold Russian winter arrived, Ann pleaded to go home. But Anne convinced her to stay. She bought them a new carriage, had two pairs of men’s knee-length leather boots made and fur coats, and on they travelled.

I was inspired to write this drama really because of [Lister]—her character, her personality,” Wainwright tells Smithsonian. “She was an extraordinary human being.” Anne Lister Conference "The Inaugural Anne Lister Conference; women, gender and sexuality in the 19th Century". Archived from the original on 25 May 2014. Ingham, Vivien (1968). "Anne Lister's Ascent of Vignemale" (PDF). Alpine Journal. 73 (316–317): 199 . Retrieved 22 January 2011.Suranne Jones says she found the experience of playing Anne “uplifting” - and was even inspired to keep a diary. In the early 1980s, Whitbread, who is also a Halifax local, stumbled upon the journals while researching Lister’s life for an article she hoped to write about this historic occupant of the town. She spent the next five years transcribing and decoding the diaries, ultimately deciding to publish edited selections because they were “just far too valuable and too intriguing” to be kept hidden. Not all of Lister’s voluminous diary entries have been transcribed, however. Choma says that she and Wainwright are formulating a plan to complete the job. In the early nineteenth century, it was rare for a young woman to be both unmarried and a landowner in her own right. It is likely that Lister was scrutinised for living so independently, as if she were a man rather than a respectable young woman. She would become an astute businesswoman and used her income to buy shares in the mining, stone, railway and canal industries. These diaries, written primarily between 1817 up until Lister’s death in 1840, are partly in code to hide her lesbian sexuality. Once decoded, they are perfectly unambiguous, at least today.

Returning to Shibden Hall in 1831, she found life with her father and sister Marian so uncomfortable that she almost immediately left again, visiting the Netherlands for a short trip with Mariana Lawton. [26] All in all, between 1826 and 1832, she only spent a short period of time at Shibden Hall, with travels around Britain and Europe allowing her to avoid her family at home. [27]

a b Dugdale, Sir William (1894). Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, with Additions. W. Pollard & Company. p. 118 . Retrieved 6 December 2018. Jeremy Liste.

In addition to income from the agricultural tenancy, Lister's financial portfolio included properties in town, shares in the canal and railway industries, mining, and stone quarries. Lister used the income from this varied portfolio to finance her two passions, the renovation of Shibden Hall, and European travel. [10] Liddington, Jill (1993). "Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax (1791–1840): Her Diaries and the Historians". History Workshop Journal. 35 (1): 45–77. doi: 10.1093/hwj/35.1.45. Besides, Sir T. H. was proved to be a perfect man by his having a child & it was infamous to be connected with both sexes – but that [there] were beings who were so unfortunate as to be not quite so perfect &, supposing they kept to one side [of] the question, was there no excuse for them. By the late nineteenth century, the term 'Boston Marriage' came into use after the publication of Henry James' novel The Bostonians (1886). The book was about a long-term cohabitation between two unmarried women, who are labelled 'new women'. James' story was based on his own sister, Alice, who spent her life living with another woman.Revealing Anne Lister". BBC Two Programmes. BBC. Archived from the original on 4 June 2010 . Retrieved 10 June 2010.

Barker, D.M. (2018). "Ann Walker, Anne Lister and St Matthew's Church, Lightcliffe" (PDF). www.lightcliffechurchyard.org.uk. p.18 . Retrieved 24 April 2022. Helena Whitbread, who revealed the contents of the Lister diaries, said Anne had earned her place in history. She praised her “outstanding courage, fearless enough to approach life on her own terms and fashion it to her liking, according to the nature which, as she saw it, God had endowed her”. Rupp, Leila J. (1999). A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America. The University of Chicago Press. p.10. ISBN 978-0-226-73156-8. In 2011, Lister's diaries were added to the register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. [18] [46] The register citation notes that, while a valuable account of the times, it was the "comprehensive and painfully honest account of lesbian life and reflections on her nature, however, which have made these diaries unique. They have shaped and continue to shape the direction of UK Gender Studies and Women's History." [46]

I didn't know exactly what to expect from this book, and I haven't watched the show before reading it; I think it was a mistake. It makes sense that it's not the entirety of her diaries (Lister documented her life since she was 25 to one month before her death at 49 every single day. That's a lot of diaries) but I was somewhat disappointed in the amount of summarizing. Also of course, it's the recounting of a real person's life so it makes sense that a lot of the daily happenings have been glossed over because deemed uninteresting--but I feel like there might have been more. Anne Lister was a number of things. She was, I quote, "the first modern lesbian". There is a plaque in Shibden Hall and another one outside the church where she had a secret (and obviously informal) wedding ceremony with Ann Walker whom she considered her wife. She was an entrepreneur with a head for (manageable) risk who competed with men on an equal basis. She refused to be patronised or sidelined by men. And she refused the advice of her girlfriends to find a man, become respectable in the eyes of society and do what she liked in secret. Anne Lister would have none of that. She knew what she wanted: she wanted a companion, a wife, with whom she would live together. She found that in nearby heiress Ann Walker. Hughes, Patricia, The Secret Life of Miss Anne Lister and the Curious Tale of Miss Eliza Raine. (Hues Books Ltd 2010)