Helena Whitbread

The focus for this collection of Anne Lister's diaries is her lesbian sexuality, as is strongly hinted at by the fact that the cover blurb quotes are from Sarah Waters, Emma Donoghue and Jeannette Winterson ;) For me, however, her teenage-like mooning over M got quite annoying quite quickly. Luckily, the diaries are fantastic as glimpses into life at the beginning of the 19th century. A fun contrast to Austen, with all the lesbian affairs and venereal diseases that didn't make it into Pride & Prejudice.… (plus d'informations)

This book spent about 10 years on my shelves waiting for me to get round reading it—I'm not entire sure why. But hearing about the approach of the new Gentleman Jack TV series finally spurred me on, even if there had been other TV programming about her in the meantime. And I suppose I was expecting this to be a more challenging read than it was—after all, diary excerpts mean that there are shorter sections inside it, so you can put it down and pick it up again later. This volume has diary excerpts from the years 1817-1824 (an earlier period than that covered in Gentleman Jack.

All in all, this is a carefully selected and edited volume that focuses on the life of a fascinating woman.… (plus d'informations)

Having read two biographies of the quite fascinating Anne Lister (Anne Choma's, focussing on the emotional courtship of Ann Walker; and Angela Steidele's perhaps more academic overview of her whole life) I thought I'd immerse myself in the diaries themselves.
This is by no means the whole of Lister's writings: the journals of some years have gone missing. Editor Helena Whitbread takes the years 1816-24, the opening of which finds Lister making a fourth (along with the bride's sister) as they accompany Mariana Belcombe- the love of her life- and the man she has married for appearance's sake on their honeymoon tour.
The diary is utterly, unputdownably interesting. It immerses you in Yorkshire life in the early 1800s. Lister describes everything...from meals taken, mundane occurrences (I was quite struck by the several visits from the leech-woman of Northowram), her changing opinions on the locals, overthinking their remarks, deciding who was 'vulgar' and who 'to cut', annd details on her boundless intellectual pursuits, as she sets herself to studying Greek, playing the flute and mastering Euclid.
In crypt hand (coded- Whitbread italicizes these passages) she discusses her thoughts on other people, her private finances, her clothes and hair, and her love interests. The reader really starts to get to know the - undoubtedly snobbish at times - character; to empathise with the loneliness after Mariana's marriage (only able to meet up occasionally) and yearning to meet someone suitable. Lister particularly endears the reader through a strong-minded determination to pull herself together - these are emphatically not pages by a whinging victim type.
One almost feels one has no business to be poring over another's hidden life. And yet, Lister remarks "I am resolved not to let my life pass without some private memorial that I may hereafter read, perhaps with a smile, when Time has frozen up the channel of those sentiments which flow so freshly now." And I think she might not mind at all… (plus d'informations)

I was inspired to read this account of Anne Lister's life after a visit to Shibden Hall, her home in nearby Halifax, and she was certainly an unconventional, opinionated lady (or perhaps 'gentleman' is more appropriate) - but some serious verbal pruning was necessary! Her amazing journals cover over thirty years, between 1806 and 1840, and Helena Whitbread only includes excerpts from 1816 to 1824, but I got the drift early on and couldn't help feeling that a little more judicious editing or sampling would have made for a more interesting read, particularly with Anne's romantic angsting. Summarise the entries where Anne talks about love, travel, domestic concerns, family and friends, etc, instead of reporting verbatim - although, if I had decoded eight years of handwriting, not to mention Anne's 'crypt hand', I would probably want to include every last word, too!

Anne Lister was born in Market Weighton in 1791, but would come to live at and eventually inherit Shibden Hall. Perhaps most famously, or infamously, Anne was known to 'love, and only love, the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn' - she had lesbian affairs with a few of her close 'friends', in particular Mrs Mariana Lawton, and devised a code based on algebra and Greek to write about her lovers in her journals (and in letters). This code was deciphered in the 1930s, but her diaries were only printed in full fifty years later. Sexual orientation aside, Anne Lister was a remarkable woman, and her personality shines through in her writing. Witty, proud and a little lonely, she actually brought to my mind Jane Austen's eponymous heroine Emma (and there have been whisperings about Emma's feelings for Harriet Smith!) She talks of 'vulgar' neighbours who she haughtily avoids associating with ('Of course I refused, tho as civilly as I could ...'), buying livery and mourning for the servants ('the cook being so big takes 9 and a quarter yards'), and comments on the dress and manner of other young women ('shockingly disfigured with out of curl ringlets'). Anne also buys a gun to defend herself and her property, firing out of her window and breaking the glass in the process, and stands her ground against strange men who pester her ('I should like to see you try'). She is at once of her time, bringing in the 'leech-woman' for treatment and 'making water' on the coach floor, and also shockingly modern, like a lesbian, land-owning Bridget Jones! A brilliant, intelligent character, talked about and cut from polite society for her 'masculine' dress and attitude, but loving and open and sympathetic to twenty-first century readers. I just wish there was rather less of the same type of journal entry to read about!… (plus d'informations)