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

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Amongst Those Left: The British Experimental Novel 1940-1960(published by Dalkey Archive); Everybody I Can Think of Ever: Meetings That Made the Avant-Garde; Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-Twentieth Century Woman’s Novel; Text Acts: Twentieth Century Literary Eroticism;and Comrades in Art: Revolutionary Art in America 1926-1938. It would be hard to deny them a gratification of this kind. I urged in my own defence the strength of natural feeling & instinct, for so I might call it, as I had always had the same turn from infancy. That it had been known to me, as it were, by inclination. She little dreams what is in my mind,” she wrote that night. “She has money and this might make up for rank. We get on very well so far.” Portrait at very top of Lister from Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. Lister was not immune to the confusion and difficulties that came with being a gay woman during the early 19th century, a time when the notion of sexual relationships between women was so fringe that it was not even included in legislation forbidding male homosexuality. She referred to her lesbianism as her “oddity,” and took careful steps to conceal her sexuality in her diaries. But her contemporaries knew she was different. Lister was the subject of gossip among her social circles, and a target of harassment in the streets. “One man followed her up the bank and tried to put his hands up her skirt to find out if she was a man or a woman,” Whitbread says. “She turned on him and raised her umbrella.”

a b "UK Memory of the World Register". UK National Commission for UNESCO. UNESCO. 2011. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011 . Retrieved 1 June 2019. Returning to the Pyrenees, Anne decided she wanted to be the first person to officially climb Vignemale, the highest mountain in the range. Her wife, unsurprisingly, refused to join her. Wednesday 20 November [Halifax] At 12:40, too George in the gig & drove to Mrs Taylor’s. Sat for my likeness perhaps 1 1/4 hour. Very well satisfied with the sketch. There is something so very characteristic in the figure. Paid for it, 2 guineas … Neither Mrs Rawson nor Catherine thought it a good likeness. Found great fault with the mouth &, at first, with almost every part of the whole thing.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.

Anne preoccupied herself with other women while Mariana was holed up in her Cheshire mansion. But when they were reunited, her lover implored her to be loyal. But first things first. Who was Anne Lister? Anne Lister was a minor landowner in England born towards the end of the 18th century. From a very young age she showed a keen interest in things that were considered unsuitable for girls at the time: science, mathematics, geology, as well as an emotional and sexual preference for girls as opposed to boys. She appears to have been a mischievous child and an indomitable spirit, who had crushes and flings with other teenage girls at the school she attended. She was sent by her parents to live with her aunt and uncle (Anne and James Lister) at Shibden Hall, which was a great thing as these two people were incredibly open-minded and offered valuable support to young Ann both emotionally and materially. When uncle James died, and after the death of Ann Lister's brothers, he bequeathed the estate to Anne impressed by her ability in estate management. There was no blueprint for what she was doing, she was just being herself. As you’re playing her, you just become aware that you have a right to be a person, you have a right to be who you are.” Green, Muriel, Miss Lister of Shibden Hall: Selected Letters (1800–1840). (The Book Guild Ltd, 1992)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”. Throughout her life, Lister had a strong Anglican faith, [19] and also remained a Tory, "interested in defending the privileges of the land-owning aristocracy". [20] Travel [ edit ] Watercolour portrait of Lister, probably by a Mrs Turner of Halifax, 1822 Changing the Victorian Subject. Maggie Tonkin, Mandy Treagus, Madeleine Seys and Sharon Crozier-De Rosa (editors), 2014, University of Adelaide Press . See chapter "Miss Wade's Torment: the Perverse Construction of Same-Sex Desire in Little Dorrit ", pp. 217-240 . Walker's fortune was used to improve Shibden Hall and the property's waterfall and lake. [18] Lister renovated Shibden Hall quite significantly to her own design. [13] In 1838, she added a Gothic tower to the main house, to serve as her private library. She also had a tunnel dug under the building which allowed the staff to move about without disturbing her. [18] It’s a lesson in our age about being authentic,” she says of Anne’s attitude. “About having a voice and using it - standing up for yourself.

Stories of Independent Women from 17th-20th Century: Genteel Women Who Did Not Marry. Charlotte Furness, 2020, Pen and Sword History . See chapter "Anne Lister of Shibden Hall 1791-1840".

It’s sort of a biography of the incredible and iconic lesbian of the 19th century Anne Lister. She kept a diary for most of her life so much of this book is excerpts of her own writing with added explanation / shortened history to make it an easier read. It was extremely interesting to read about Anne Lister's life and experience. Her relationship with her sexuality and the way she carved an identity true to herself in a world where nobody seemed to be like her is fascinating--the glimpse of her reasoning and her research and her journey.