The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister by Anne Lister

Despite being taunted by fellow Halifax residents, who referred to her as “Gentleman Jack,” Lister flouted convention by dressing in black men’s attire and taking part in typically male activities such as riding and shooting.

She possessed a self-knowledge about her identity and was open about it to her family and close friends at a time when that was frowned upon. In an era when women had virtually no voice or power, Ann Lister of Yorkshire, England defied the odds to become what some call the first modern lesbian. Anne's descriptive powers bring each scene vividly to life, providing a brilliant, kaleidoscopic background to her story.“Monday 29 January 1821 I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs.” We follow Anne Lister to Buxton, Derbyshire, where a husband appears in hot pursuit of his straying wife who has, in turn, followed Anne there in Halifax, the Yorkshire town of Anne's birth to London and to post-revolutionary Paris, a city alive with political intrigue. Anne's efforts, firstly to extricate herself from this new 'scrape' and then to make a choice between the two women in her life, provides an absorbing sexual and social drama. There she becomes emotionally entangled with a young widow. Anne Lister arrives in post-revolutionary Paris in 1824, attempting to recover from a doomed love affair with a married woman. This second volume continues the story of one of the most remarkable women of her time: landowner, industrialist, traveller and lesbian. It was the first time her story had been told. Whitbread has devoted years to researching and transcribing Lister's extensive journals the 'crypthand' had allowed Lister to record her life in intimate, and at times, explicit, detail. When Helena Whitbread first published excerpts from Anne Lister's diary, which was written in a complicated, esoteric code, it was hailed as a lost piece of lesbian history. 'Engaging, revealing, at times simply astonishing: Anne Lister's diaries are an indispensable read' SARAH WATERS By resurrecting them and editing them with such loving attention and intelligence, Helena Whitbread has earned the gratitude of a whole generation' EMMA DONOGHUE 'The Lister diaries are the Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history they changed everything.

ANNE LISTER IS THE INSPIRATION FOR GENTLEMAN JACK, THE ACCLAIMED BBC/HBO SERIES BY SALLY WAINWRIGHT, STARRING SURANNE JONES.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister by Anne Lister