The collection ends with a conversation between Donoghue and Wainwright about the process of creating the Gentleman Jack TV show.
sex between women
This tag is used for any general discussion of erotic physical activity between women or one where more specific terms are not mentioned.
LHMP entry
This article talks about the process of adopting Lister’s story for the screen (in various forms) and extensively explores viewer reception. It includes discussion of adaptations of queer histories in general. As the topic is removed from the historic grounding (in several senses), I’ll skip a detailed summary, but it’s definitely worth reading.
This article discusses the installation of commemorative plaques for Anne Lister at Shibden Hall and at the church in York where she and Ann Walker solemnized their marriage. The focus of the article is on the discussions and controversies around how to describe Lister – whether using the word “lesbian” was anachronistic, or whether omitting it was erasure; whether to describe her with language that implied transmasculinity or gender nonconformity.
This article is a detailed account of Lister’s (and Walker’s) last journey in the Caucasus. The author makes regular comparisons to the experiences she and her wife had in retracing the trip. There are a great many interesting ethnographic details, but the content is outside the scope of the Project, except in its central character.
This article analyzes Lister’s records in the context of travel writing. Although the desire to travel and its accomplishment were a significant part of Lister’s identity, my summary is going to be confined largely to discussions of her trip to Wales and the visit to Plas Newydd, the home of the Ladies of Llangollen.
This article, written by the Collections Manager for Shibden Hall, describes the history of the building, the changes that Lister made to it, and the site’s explosion of visitor interest in the wake of the TV series Gentleman Jack, which created some interesting curatorial dilemmas. Once again, I won’t be summarizing in detail, but will touch on a few topics of particular interest.
This interesting article traces the history of the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society, other similar civic organizations, Lister’s participation in those organizations, and gender issues around membership and activity.
As this article focuses on Lister’s political context and activity, it doesn’t have direct connections to her sexuality (though it does to her gender). Lister’s lifetime spanned a very busy political era for the UK, including the later consequences of the French Revolution, the rise of the industrial era, the abolition of the slave trade and then of slavery itself, and other significant events and changes. Through all this, Lister approached issues as a staunch Tory, supporting the Crown, the rights and privileges of landowners, and the special place of the Anglican church.
I’m going to skim over this article because it falls in the category of “scholarship about modern philosophical theories” and doesn’t really say much about Lister’s historic context. In this case, the modern theory has to do with the concept of the closet. So it analyzes Listers’ practices around concealment and management of her personal life, but does so in a framework based on 20th century ideas about being closeted. Many of the historic texts and frameworks that are discussed are not examined in terms of how Lister engaged with them, but rather uses them as metaphors.
[Note: check out Turton’s other articles on queer lexicography, especially Turton 2024. I’ll be skipping briefly over some topics he covers in those.]
This article explores Lister’s sources of anatomical knowledge and how they affected her embodied understanding of erotic response. The question begins with an odd fact: although Lister first recorded the word “clytoris” in 1814, at age 22, it wasn’t until 17 years later that she describes clearly identifying her own clitoris. What can make sense of this for a woman who was deeply and clinically interested in her own sexuality?
This article traces one aspect of how Lister understood her gender and sexuality, that is, as a “natural” variation that was to some extent unique to her. Rather than projecting modern identity concepts back in time onto Lister, Shannon locates this understanding within the past and present philosophies of Lister’s own time with respect to the concept of “nature.”
Foreword by Emma Donoghue
This is the collection of papers based on material from the Lister archives, approached from a variety of angles. [Note: Not all of the material touches on her sexuality, but I will blog everything, though some coverage may be briefer than others.]
The front matter includes a forward by Emma Donoghue, an introduction by Chris Roulston (one of the editors), and a conversation between Carolyn Gonda (the other editor) and Helena Whitbread.
The appendices consist of several types of information. The first section covers technical reference data:
This section, naturally, sums up the author’s purposes and results. Lister’s records had multiple functions. [Note: One hesitates to call them “purposes” as the functions likely emerged from the practice, rather than being a design feature.] The detailed and structured record of her activities, thoughts, and experiences create a type of autobiography, while at the same time not being designed as a literary work or coherent narrative. The function of her correspondence was to create and maintain a social network that included family, friends, and lovers.
Lister’s habit of using code phrases for meaningful events and concepts is particularly evident in language around desire. One especially colorful expression was “going to Italy.” Whitbread interpreted this as indicating a fully sexual relationship, but Orr opines that the evidence for this is not included in the excerpts in No Priest But Love, and that the meaning is more nuanced. The other method of signifying especially noteworthy progress in the relationship was with a triple Silcrow symbol.
This section uses Listers discussion with Barlow of her sexual history to lay out both that history and the context in which she shares it, and how that reflects the progression of the Barlow romance. Some of the filtering of the information is marked by how Lister describes her sharing as “the story,” “nearly the whole story,” “nearly the real story,” and similar qualifications. “Story” did not imply a fiction but simply referred to a communication. Such stories were shared with a gradation of specificity.
The chapter opens by reviewing Lister’s several purposes for the Paris trip. A primary one was to seek specialized medical advice and treatment for her venereal disease (More on which later). But other reasons were to improve her French, and to get away – in several senses – from some emotional upsets of a year before.
As noted previously, the proprietor Madame de Boyve loved matchmaking and spent a lot of effort trying to set Lister up with Mr. Franks. But initially, Lester interpreted de Boyve’s attentiveness to her as more personal. Lister recorded that she “seems to have taken a fancy to me” and Lister responded with “something of flattery of manner she is not used to from ladies.” Franks departed with nothing to show for de Boyve’s efforts, after which de Boyve turned toward trying to drive a wedge between Lister and Barlow.
There were a lot of romantic goings-on at Place Vendôme. As noted previously, de Boyve was an enthusiastic matchmaker, and as will be discussed later, her housekeeper was said to procure less formal arrangements for the male guests.
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