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

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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] Then, after a year apart, Anne and Mariana met again at her parents’ house in York. Neither could wait to be reconnected. Mariana was in bed with toothache and sneaked Anne into her bedroom. 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] a b c d Norton, Rictor. "Anne Lister: The First Modern Lesbian". Lesbian History . Retrieved 29 May 2010.

Journal of Ann Walker". West Yorkshire Archive Service. WYC:1525/7/1/5/1. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021.Roulston, Chris (2013). "The Revolting Anne Lister: The U.K.'s First Modern Lesbian". Journal of Lesbian Studies. 17 (3–4): 267–268. doi: 10.1080/10894160.2013.731866. PMID 23855940. S2CID 3058406. Season One follows the return of Anne Lister to Shibden Hall, her determination to update the estate and manage its assets effectively and the beginnings of her romantic involvement with Ann Walker. Although this involvement has a happy end (and I'm not giving anything away here), the two women have to face the constant hostility of Ann Walker's family who are set upon crushing the spirits of these two women. Will they succeed? I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any other love than theirs.' – 29th January 1821

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. 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”. A biography by Angela Steidele in the German language was published in 2017, and published in English in 2018. [51] In 2022 Russian researcher Olga Khoroshilova published a book about Lister's final and dramatic journey in Russia. [52] In 2013, in an article by Chris Roulston, she was described as "the first modern lesbian". [53] Popular culture [ edit ]

Anne’s diaries

Fascinating! I don't know much about queer history or the important people within it, so I'd never heard of Anne Lister until the recent HBO series. This book only covers a few years of her life and focuses on her relationship with Ann Walker. In fact, the series follows it quite well with some added story-lines about the tenants and servants. That's not a surprise since it seems like Choma and Sally Wainwright (the series's writer/director) are friends and that this show was a long-time-coming passion project for Wainwright. 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. The Lister diaries are the Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history; they changed everything. By resurrecting them and editing them with such loving attention and intelligence, Helena Whitbread has earned the gratitude of a whole generation.' - Emma Donoghue 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]

Hughes, Patricia (2010). The Early Life of Miss Anne Lister and the Curious Tale of Miss Eliza Raine.Lister greatly enjoyed travel, although her biographer Angela Steidele suggests her trips in later life were also a way to "evade the self realisation that she had failed at everything she set her hand to". [21] She made her first trip to continental Europe in 1819, when she was 28 years old. She travelled with her 54-year-old aunt, also called Anne Lister, on a two-month trip to France. [22]