Blog
Saturday, August 15, 2026 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 349 - On the Shelf for August 2026 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2026/08/15)
Welcome to On the Shelf for August 2026.
As you’re probably aware—because I’ve been mentioning it regularly—this month marks the completion of 10 years of the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. Back in August 2016 I started out with a monthly series that was part of a group magazine-style show created by Sheena of The Lesbian Review. A year later in 2017, with Sheena’s encouragement, I expanded the show to weekly, adding these “on the shelf” episodes, interviews and book recommendations from authors, and the occasional 5th-Saturday special that became the fiction series in 2018. When Sheena closed down the Lesbian Review podcast and I went independent in 2021, I also backed off on the frequency, going to 2 episodes per month plus the fiction episodes.
In the mean time I’ve shared discussions of biographies, poetry, literature, and historic concepts and social phenomena related to lesbianism. In the process, I’ve accumulated a lot of material for my ultimate goal: a published sourcebook of material on writing lesbian and sapphic characters into history. Creating this podcast has given me the opportunity to interact personally with authors, publishers, reviewers, and academics in the field. It also gave me the chance to develop my skills as a sound editor and narrator—though I haven’t yet taken the final step down that road and set up a dedicated home recording studio!
When I took the show independent back in 2021, I made a silent pledge that I wouldn’t commercialize the show. No advertisements, no sponsors, only what people offer freely through our Patreon. (I believe there are some distribution sites that add their own advertisements, but that’s not within my control and I get no money from it.) If you like what this show offers, the second-best way to say it is by supporting our Patreon, but the best way to say it is by telling people about the show. Talk us up on social media; give us a review on your podcast app; send fan mail. (Seriously, one piece of fan mail will keep me glowing for months.)
This month’s show will be a little thin, due to the scheduling adjustments from the anniversary episode and catching up after my broken arm. (Which is doing much better now, thank you, though still not 100%.) The month will close out with a fiction episode and then things should be relatively back to normal.
Keep spreading the word about next year’s fiction series, which will be the last year—just for the fiction series, not the podcast! The link to the call for submissions is in the show notes, as usual.
Publications on the Blog
The blog has continued to cover the collection of articles from Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, edited by Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda. Not all of the articles are about Lister’s sexuality—her diaries are invaluable for many aspects of the life and experiences of an early 19th century female English landowner.
After that I returned to my current crop of journal articles and covered three that related to medieval literature. Kathleen M. Blumreich’s “Lesbian Desire in the Old French Roman de Silence” manages to take the story of a cross-dressing female knight with a lot of homoerotic appeal and analyze it from a rather homophobic angle. Lucy Allen Paton’s “The Story of Grisandole: A Study in the Legend of Merlin” is a detailed analysis of the sources and connections of a story that is closely connected to the Romance of Silence, but doesn’t have the same homoerotic elements. Finishing up was a much more satisfying detailed analysis of the homoerotic encounters of cross-dressing knights in the Amadis de Gaule cycle. I especially appreciated this one because I’d seen brief references to these characters in previous articles but this was the first time I’d seen the plot of the story laid out in detail.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
I don’t think I’ve acquired any new books for the blog, so we’ll go straight to the new and recent fiction releases. Numbers are smaller than usual. It must be a summer slump because it’s been a full 4 weeks since the last On the Shelf round-up, due to the disrupted schedule.
First up in chronological order is a medievalish story—probably more “ish” than “medieval” to be honest: Bodhi and Gwen by Del Robertson from Affinity eBook Press.
When a hapless fair maiden and a battle-scarred swordswoman cross paths, survival should be simple. Instead, Gwen and Bodhi find themselves stumbling from one disaster to the next—ogres, murder accusations, dangerous killers, suspicious villagers, and enough near-death experiences to test even the strongest bond.
Gwen never expected her savior to be a cocky, infuriatingly attractive woman with a talent for trouble. Bodhi never intended to care so much about the maiden she rescued. But as danger closes in from every side, the two are forced to rely on each other in ways neither anticipated.
Hannah Briar has two releases, one in July that I only just found and one in August, both with Regency settings. The first is The Education of Miss Pryce.
London, 1814. Harriet Pryce arrives in Bloomsbury with seven years of Latin, one good dress, and an unprompted essay on archival organization that somehow got her hired. Her new employer — Aurelia St. Claire, widow, classicist, and founder of London's only private lending library for women scholars — has dismissed four research assistants in as many years. She does not need anyone. She has spent twenty years making certain of that. What neither of them expected was a forty-three-minute argument about rule seven.
The St. Claire Collection gives women scholars access to texts unavailable to them anywhere else — but Aurelia's brother-in-law controls the trust and is quietly, methodically building a case to dissolve it. He doesn't need to raise his voice. He never does. The collection's members have nowhere else to go, and somewhere in the catalogue is the answer that could save everything, if Harriet can find it before time runs out.
But the legal threat is only half the story. Because Harriet has begun cataloguing the wrong things entirely — the specific silence that means something has gone well, the route through the stacks, the way Aurelia holds a volume to the light. And Aurelia, who built her entire life around not wanting things that could be taken from her, was not prepared for someone who would argue about marginalia for forty-three minutes and then stay.
Hannah Briar’s second book is The Language of Flowers (Lavender Society #1).
She fled her marriage with nothing but a coded letter and a single trunk. She never expected to find a woman who could actually see her.
Widowed at four-and-twenty with nowhere left to turn, Eliza Moreton arrives at Wyndermere Estate carrying a secret she doesn't yet understand — and finds Beatrice Ashford, Countess of Wyndermere, guarding a far bigger one. Beatrice runs a hidden network of women who help each other disappear, survive, and start over, speaking in coded letters and the secret language of flowers. She hasn't let anyone close in ten years. She isn't planning to start with a penniless widow half her age.
But Eliza sees her — really sees her — in a way no one ever has, and as coded letters give way to quiet mornings in the greenhouse, careful walls start coming down on both sides. When a ruthless solicitor threatens to expose the society and everyone in it, Beatrice and Eliza will have to risk more than secrets to save what they've built. They'll have to risk each other.
The Lost Brontë by Catherine Friend from Bywater Books takes up literary intrigue.
Yorkshire, 1898. When twenty-one-year-old Lilianne Loxley is sent to Lord Bexton’s isolated estate to work off her uncle's debts, she expects drudgery—not danger. With her gift for mimicry, she becomes Bexton’s secretary—and his reluctant forger. Soon she’s trapped in a scheme to create a “lost” novel by Emily Brontë, a deception that could make—or destroy—fortunes.
The house is full of secrets: footsteps echo in empty corridors, lemon-scented ghosts haunt her sleepless nights, and a portrait seems to watch her every move. Yet it’s the living who unsettle her most—especially Wren McAllister, the sharp-tongued maid whose defiance hides a tender heart. Drawn together by loss and longing, Lily and Wren risk everything for a freedom neither has ever known.
As the line between truth and invention blurs, Lily uncovers a shocking connection to the Brontë family—and to Bexton himself—that will force her to choose between love, loyalty, and the dangerous power of her own pen.
We enter the currently popular realm of Prohibition-era danger in Going Down at the Point by Kimberlee Jarrett Wilson.
Pittsburgh, 1926. The city runs on steel, secrets, and gin that isn't supposed to exist. Eleanor Hart has never once chosen anything for herself — not her friends, not her future, not the man she's engaged to marry in June. She's spent her whole life being handled: by her mother, by society, by a fiancé who's already decided how the rest of her life is going to go. Then a friend hands her an address on the back of a dance card, and one reckless night leads her through a hidden door in the Strip District, into a room lit violet and gold — and into the path of a woman who asks her exactly one dangerous question: what do you actually want?
Lila Bianchi built Violet's out of nothing after her father's death, and built a rule to go with it: never fall for the customers. She breaks it the moment Eleanor Hart walks in wearing gloves too fine to ruin. What starts as one stolen evening becomes something neither of them can afford to want as badly as they do — not with a wedding bearing down, a family built entirely on appearances, and a city that has never once forgiven women like them for choosing each other.
This next book was something of a borderline case and I had to track down some early reviews to decide whether to include it. The Harrow Home for Wayward Girls by Jessica Spotswood from Henry Holt and Co. features a bi protagonist who has had relationships with girls but her central romance in this book is with a boy.
The Harrow Home for Wayward Girls has long stood as a place of secrets. The estate has housed hundreds of young women hidden away during their pregnancies, their homesick cries echoing through the halls, providing a haunting score to Grace Harrow’s childhood.
Now, in the summer of 1947, the Home has been sold to a wealthy hotelier. Grace expects the new owner's daughters to be spoiled. Yet Rose, the eldest daughter―unaware of Mr. Harrow's abusive tendencies―is jealous of Grace's seemingly easy confidence. But as they’re drawn into each other's lives, an unlikely friendship begins to form. Fortunately so, because not all of the wayward girls made it out. One still lingers. Lurking in the shadows. Looking for vengeance.
To expose the truth buried in the walls of the Harrow Home, Grace and Rose must unravel a legacy of silence and cruelty. But Grace’s father will stop at nothing to keep the past hidden, and if the truth comes to light, it could destroy both their families.
The Keeper's Light (Edge of the World #1) by Margaret Fridley from Augusta Flint Publishing is set in the mid-20th century.
A lighthouse at the edge of the Atlantic. A woman who chose isolation over being destroyed. A storm that sent a stranger to her door. Gabriella Maydon has kept her lighthouse for ten years. Dr. Isobel Brennan has spent five years running toward storms to outrun grief. When a hurricane locks them together on a granite rock off the coast of Maine, they discover that the most dangerous thing either of them has faced isn't the Category 3 bearing down on the coast. It's the possibility of being known.
The Haunting of Avis Lovelock by M.K. Hardy from Solaris is a real opposites-attract story.
Avis Lovelock is a professional sceptic. Using her sharp insights and powers of observation, she sets out to debunk every nefarious spirit medium and psychic she can find. When American businessman Carlton Brooksbank invites her aboard the ocean liner Excambion to take her skills to America, Avis discovers she has been hired to prove to potential buyers that the vessel is not haunted.
As she begins her investigations, she runs afoul of the famous twin spiritualists onboard, Gideon and Rachel Duquesne. They are her polar opposites, and Rachel especially has a knack for getting under her skin. The more Avis works to discredit her adversaries and absolve the ship of its haunted reputation, the more she starts to have visions of water filling her cabin, drowned bodies on decks, and flickering lights on the sea. Then someone is found dead.
To discover the truth, Avis must join forces with her opponents, and confront some haunting secrets of her own.
The Tailor's Treasure by Alison McKenzie from Alison McKenzie Books doesn’t give any solid clues to the setting, either in time or space, but the set-up does feel historical, so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt.
Isabel d'Eresby knows better than to want things. Fifteen years of striving has left her with nothing - no money, no home of her own, and no control over her life. Now she's a widow dependent on the charity of her husband's loathsome family, with no hope of climbing out of the hole she's dug for herself. The only thing she has is her son - and for his sake, she'll swallow any indignity to make sure that her in-laws don't make good on their threats to take him from her. She can't afford to take risks - until the day a beautiful woman walks into her life with an offer that could finally turn her luck around. Just so long as she doesn't fall in love with her .
Constance Rykener has never given up on anything or anyone - not the husband she married for convenience's sake, not the business that's rapidly sinking under her feet, not the rebellious niece who's begging Constance to save her from an arranged marriage. She has plenty on her plate already - but when a chance meeting brings Isabel into her life, she can't resist the urge to try and help her. Of course, it doesn't hurt that she's beautiful and prickly in a way that makes Constance want to bring her out of her shell. But the more she learns about Isabel, the more it becomes clear that her scars go far deeper than Constance realized - and that Constance's attempts to save her run the risk of making everything worse for both of them.
A business partnership prolongs their connection past a chance meeting, and makes it increasingly clear that something undeniable is growing between them. Before long, the thought of separating feels as impossible as being together once did. But with their families and society all arrayed against them, they will have to decide whether to take refuge in caution or to risk following their hearts - and losing everything.
What Am I Reading?
And what have I read lately? (Other than all the articles for the blog, of course.) My own reading continues to languish. I did read a number of short fiction works in preparation for voting for the Hugo Awards, but even when I have forced inactivity due to my current rigorous physical therapy schedule, the discomfort makes it hard for me to concentrate on books. On the other hand, I’ve been binging a lot of cozy British mystery tv series. Now if only a few of them were sapphic…
Show Notes
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- A brief recap of the podcast’s history.
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Roulston, Chris & Caroline Gonda, eds. 2023. Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’ . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
- Blumreich, Kathleen M. “Lesbian Desire in the Old French Roman de Silence,” in Arthuriana 7:2 (1997): 47-62.
- Paton, Lucy Allen. 1907. “The Story of Grisandole: A Study in the Legend of Merlin” in PMLA vol. 22, no. 2. pp.234-276.
- Schleiner, Winfried. 1992. “Le feu caché: Homosocial Bonds Between Women in a Renaissance Romance” in Renaissance Quarterly 45: 293-311.
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Bodhi and Gwen by Del Robertson
- The Education of Miss Pryce by Hannah Briar
- The Language of Flowers (Lavender Society #1) by Hannah Briar
- The Lost Brontë by Catherine Friend
- Going Down at the Point by Kimberlee Jarrett Wilson
- The Harrow Home for Wayward Girls by Jessica Spotswood
- The Keeper's Light (Edge of the World #1) by Margaret Fridley
- The Tailor's Treasure by Alison McKenzie
- The Haunting of Avis Lovelock by M.K. Hardy
- Call for submissions for the 2026 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMP View comments (0)
Thursday, August 13, 2026 - 11:00
The last two covered publications about medieval romances had only tangential relevance to the Project, but this article is a treasure. I've previously run across passing references to the same-sex romantic interactions in Amadis de Gaule, but they tended to assume that the reader was thoroughly familiar with the tale. This article focuses specifically on those romances and lays out the background and context for the characters involved. Although this romance cycle dates originally to the 14th century, the specific sub-tales discussed here were added in the mid-16th century and so can be assumed to reflect that era in terms of motifs and audience familiarity.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Schleiner, Winfried. 1992. “Le feu caché: Homosocial Bonds Between Women in a Renaissance Romance” in Renaissance Quarterly 45: 293-311.
I’ve run into references to the homoerotic interactions in Amadis de Gaule, but hadn’t previously read a relatively comprehensive plot summary. As a result, I think that sometimes when I’ve referred to the cross-dressing characters Oronce and La Belle Sauvage I may have misinterpreted the details. So I’ll start with some extensive background for the story cycle, with the aid of Wikipedia.
Amadis de Gaule is the French name for a massive romance cycle popular across Europe in various languages. The original story in four volumes composed in the 14th century in Spain was expanded and extended by at least seven different authors into 21 volumes in the French version (the best known). The core story is a chivalric adventures of a young man – the child of a star crossed royal love affair – and the obstacles to his romance with Oriana. The additional volumes follow various secondary characters from the original tale.
Despite many earlier references to the work and some fragmentary texts, the earliest surviving complete text is from 1508, compiled by the Spanish writer Montalvo who edited and revised earlier material, as well as writing one of the sequels. Volume 5 to 12 of the Spanish version were written in the first half of the 16th century. The surviving version of the French translation was written in the 16th century: volumes 1 to 12 in the middle of the century, 13 to 21 later in the century and 22 to 24 sometime after 1594.
Amadis continued in popularity through the 17th century. It was beloved of the fictional character Don Quixote and lent characters and motifs to authors such as Sidney and Spencer . (It is reasonable to assume that any well-read person in the 15th to 17th centuries could have been familiar with the work.)
The stories involving Oronce and La Belle Sauvage are found in volumes 19 to 21 of the French version, so these stories of cross dressing and homoerotic encounters would be available to readers toward the end of the 16th century and later and would reflect literary tastes of that era (though with connections to earlier stories).
The two women discussed here have different backgrounds. Oronce is an Amazon who dresses as a knight for “glory and reputation,” considering that this approach is more prudent than doing so while presenting as a woman. In her male disguise, she takes on the social expectations of chivalric romance, finding a lady(Licinie) to serve and protect (and also to serve as a chaperone for herself). La Belle Sauvage disguises herself to avenge her father’s death. She, too, picks up a damsel (Lucence) to travel with and protect, who immediately falls in love with her.
Both women prevail in their various conflicts through strength, cunning, or magic, while the audience is still constantly reminded of their “beauty and delicacy.” This is not necessarily a gendered beauty as the story regularly emphasizes the equivalence of male and female beauty standards. Women, seeing Oronce’s face, and believing her to be male are attracted to her in the same way they would be to a man. She is not identifiable as female solely by her appearance. The text considers this an unremarkable experience. Of La Belle Sauvage, the narrator says, “she attracted the hearts of knights when she was dressed as a woman, and those of the ladies and damsels when she was in male clothes.”
This dynamic leads to a whole array of women falling in love with the cross-dressed knights, only to be disconcerted when the “error” is discovered. But here we come to the heart of Shleiner’s analysis because there is a clear distinction made between the condemnation of male-male relations and the mild distress felt at inadvertent female-female love, which is easily shifted to friendship and positive admiration.
The two women interact with each other in the tale (along with another cross-dressed Amazon, Atlete, who evidently doesn’t attract the same amorous attention). La Belle Sauvage falls in love with Oronce before learning her underlying sex, and thus has some sympathy for the women who have mistakenly fallen for herself, though she was discreet enough not to show her “misdirected” love before learning the truth. The Amazons are aware of La Belle Sauvage’s sex all along but have been reluctant to put off their disguise specifically knowing it will embarrass her. It is the arrival of the Amazon queen and her entourage that forces Oronce and Atlete to come clean, knowing that their fellow Amazons will recognize them.
The social consequences of these gender-blind beauty standards are pointed up when Licinie – after discovering that her beloved Oronce is a woman – becomes so anxious about her inability to detect gender that when she is attracted to a young man, she worries that he, too, is a woman in disguise. (Perhaps not an irrational concern given that his mother, Penthesilea, also cross-dressed. This is presumably the Amazon Penthesilea.)
A contrast is made between women who mistakenly fell in love with women but were discreet enough not to display their love before learning better, and those who were openly amorous and then found themselves publicly embarrassed when the truth came out. But again, this is not a gendered issue. The indiscreet expression of love is generally frowned on; it’s only when the object turns out to be inappropriate that it becomes an embarrassment.
These same-gender attractions are not all one-sided. The cross-dressed knights express a devotion and admiration for their damsels that go beyond playing a conventional role. Oronce thinks to herself of Licinie, “If I were a knight and my heart were free, I would not want to have any lady but her.” She speaks amorous words to Licinie and falls in love with her beauty. La Belle Sauvage not only jousts in Lucence’s name but shows her favor “for her beauty and good grace.” On another occasion, happening across a group of young women sleeping in a garden, La Belle Sauvage pauses to admire them as a (male) knight would.
While the story contains no actual sexual encounters between women, and any interactions between women who both know each other’s sex are carefully platonic, the unease and anxiety generated by gender errors are muted and don’t include the “no homo” response expressed elsewhere in the story when a man is thought to be in love with another man (actually the disguised Oronce).
When all is revealed, the female characters work to reassure each other that they enjoyed the same-sex admiration and that “if it is true that ladies like to see a fine and virtuous knight, they derive even a greater pleasure from seeing a beautiful and gracious lady or damsel.” The queen who says this was greatly distressed to discover that her beloved Oronce was a woman. And La Belle Sauvage tells Lucence that she did return her love, at which Lucence responds, “although you are a young woman, I will not stop loving you, for I will remain content only to contemplate your beauty.” Love between women is not rejected or despised, but only redirected into socially acceptable paths. And in the end, when La Belle Sauvage falls in love with a male knight, she explains it was because of his resemblance to Oronce.
Time period:
Place:
Event / person:
Sunday, August 9, 2026 - 20:00
Discussions of cross-dressed medieval romance heroines commonly mention the tale of Grisandole. For the sake of completeness, I tracked down this comprehensive analysis of the tale. Although Grisandole's cross-dressing doesn't include any of the accidental homoeroticism of many such tales, this article is a great example of how medieval romances were built up out of pre-existing material, and how many parallel versions of a core tale co-existed, swapping elements out or in depending on the local taste. Grisandole's tale actually has close parallels with one element of the Romance of Silence, but this article was written before the latter was re-discovered.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Paton, Lucy Allen. 1907. “The Story of Grisandole: A Study in the Legend of Merlin” in PMLA vol. 22, no. 2. pp.234-276.
[Note: the story of Grisandole has an interesting parallel to the Romance of Silence in the episode about the quest for Merlin and the revelation of Silence’s gender. Although this article is strongly focused on the sources, parallels, and variant versions of the story, it omits any mention of Silence for the simple reason that the article was published in 1907 and the single manuscript of Silence was only rediscovered in 1911.]
The story of Grisandole is a rather patchwork episode included in French and English versions of the prose Merlin. A young woman, separated from her parents when they are banished, disguises herself as a man, taking on the name Grisandole and takes service with Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome. The emperor has a strange dream that can only be interpreted by the wildman of the woods (who is actually Merlin). The emperor promises half his kingdom and his daughter’s hand in marriage to whoever can capture Merlin, which Grisandole succeeds in doing. Grisandole’s gender is revealed, a convenient brother gets the daughter’s hand in marriage, and Grisandole is married to the emperor, whose queen has been executed for adultery.
The article explores in great depth and breadth the thematic connections to earlier sources and other medieval tales that include some subset or variation on the main motifs. The motifs shared with Silence—in addition to the gender disguise—include the queen having ladies-in-waiting that are men in disguise who are her lovers and the episodes of Merlin laughing at various sights that must be explained.
Grisandole does not include the motif of the queen’s attempted seduction of the cross-dressed heroine, although other variants of this tale-group do, nor the extensive meditations on the nature of gender. The earliest sources for a version of the tale, found in Asia, don’t necessarily include the cross-dressing motif, but do have a female figure as the catalyst for the story. The analysis shows how the specific figure of Merlin is a late addition to the tale, being attached to a pre-existing “wild man” or other supernatural figure.
This article is a great example of a complex thematic analysis of a medieval romance, showing how elements from multiple sources were combined and reworked, fit into popular national story cycles, and existed in many variants. But other than the cross-dressed heroine motif it has little relevance to the Project. I include it, in part, because more general discussions of cross-dressed heroines in romances mention Grisandole and I wanted to find a source that lays out the essentials of the story.
Time period:
Event / person:
Saturday, August 8, 2026 - 15:00
The medieval French Roman de Silence is a rich text for exploring gender and sexuality, but as is often the case, what you find can depend on what you're looking for. What I personally look for is often imagery that could have informed a medieval woman's understanding of her sexual possibilities. This author seems to have been looking for ways to associate the homoeroticism in the tale with the villainess--even though the villainess's sexual transgressions are all heterosexual from her point of view.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Blumreich, Kathleen M. “Lesbian Desire in the Old French Roman de Silence,” in Arthuriana 7:2 (1997): 47-62.
For a good background summary of the medieval Romance of Silence see my podcast on the topic. Scholarship about this romance rarely adds any significantly new angles to the central story, but does offer various interpretations of the stories meaning and likely reception.
# # #
Rather than focusing on the titular character of Silence, this article compares the two similarly-named characters, Silence’s mother Eufemie and Silence’s antagonist, Queen Eufeme, as exemplars of “good” and “bad” female sexuality. The cross-dressed Silence is treated as asexual in this analysis.
Eufemie is presented as both an extraordinarily gifted woman – educated, skilled in medicine, and socially powerful – and as the ideal romance heroine who was won as a marital prize through martial prowess, and who subsequently subsumes her agency entirely to her husband. To be fair, a great deal is made of how Eufemie and Cador’s marriage is a love match, but it is clear that the marriage would have occurred regardless of her feelings. With regard to sexuality, Eufemie loves only her husband, loves him deeply, and is rewarded by abandoning all personal autonomy or even separate identity. She is the ideal woman.
In contrast, Queen Eufeme is also beautiful and talented and has also entered marriage via agreements that she had no agency in. But there is no love on either side; her talents are for deception and seduction; she is above all an adulteress; and her extramarital liaisons all have an additional layer of transgression. Although her sexuality is heterosexual in intent, it carries the appearance of homosexuality in several ways. Eufeme’s primary lover is a man who lives among her ladies-in-waiting disguised as a nun. And her unreciprocated desire for Silence has the apparent form of lusting after a young man, but the underlying reality of targeting a woman. An additional queer layer is added when the rebuffed Eufeme, unwilling to accept that a man would resist her seduction, accuses Silence of being a homosexual man. [Note: The author also frames Silence as being perceived as a “boy” adding pederasty to the equation, but I’m dubious about this reading as we’re talking about a character who has already become a military hero.]
The author frames Eufeme’s sexuality as “lesbian” based on the superficial appearance of one (the “nun”) and the underlying reality of the other (Silence). I find this reading a bit strained. (That is, while I see same-sex themes in the story, I disagree that Eufeme’s actions are driven by same-sex desire.] Eufeme is aware of the “nun’s” sex and engages in the relationship on that basis, whereas she genuinely believes Silence to be male, and her actions and words during the attempted seduction all align with a woman seducing a man.
Eufeme represents a “bad woman” because of her unchastity and her actions to take revenge on Silence for the rejection. She is unfaithful to her husband, takes an aggressive sexual role, and punishes virtue with treachery. But the author, rather than viewing this through the lens of “the fury of a woman scorned” alleges, “fearful of her own latent lesbianism, she seeks to destroy the stimulus.”
So, in sum, although I agree that there are interesting themes around homosexuality in the tale (perhaps especially the hint in passing that a “homosexual identity” would be a believable reason for rejecting a heterosexual liaison), I find Blumreich’s analysis hard to support from the text.
Time period:
Event / person:
Wednesday, August 5, 2026 - 14:00
This is the final item from the collection Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’. Once again, it's just a place-holder rather than a full summary, as the interview is entirely focused on the making of the modern tv series.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Donoghue , Emma & Sally Wainwright. 2023. “Emma Donoghue in Conversation with Sally Wainwright” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
13. Emma Donoghue in Conversation with Sally Wainwright
The collection ends with a conversation between Donoghue and Wainwright about the process of creating the Gentleman Jack TV show.
Time period:
Place:
Event / person:
Tuesday, August 4, 2026 - 13:00
This week I'll be posting from the Golden Crown Literary Society conference in Orlando Florida!
This is another article that I haven't summarized in detail (or much at all) because it's concerned with modern topics, specifically the process of adapting Lister's story for tv. The article if fascinating reading, but not pertinent to history, as such.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Roulston , Chris. 2023. “From Anne Lister to Gentleman Jack: Queer Temporality, Fandom and the Gains and Losses of Adaptation” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
12. From Anne Lister to Gentleman Jack: Queer Temporality, Fandom and the Gains and Losses of Adaptation by Chris Roulston
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.
Time period:
Place:
Event / person:
Monday, August 3, 2026 - 16:00
The final section of this collection of articles centered around Anne Lister concerns itself with modern engagement with her history and legacy, like this one which has as a jumping-off point the wording on commemorative plaques installed referring to her.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Gonda , Caroline. 2023. “Labels, Plaques and Identity Categories: Finding the Words for Anne Lister” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
Part V: ‘I beg to be remembered’: Lister, Public History and Popular Culture; 11. Labels, Plaques and Identity Categories: Finding the Words for Anne Lister by Caroline Gonda
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. Modern people of a variety of identities are invested in seeing Lister as “one of us” and no specific wording choice was going to satisfy everyone. The length of the text available on the plaques didn’t leave room for extensive nuance. The versions eventually settled on use the word “lesbian,” but space is given in the article to discussions of the wider issues in such labeling, including the point that Lister is not recorded as using that word, nor seems likely to have done so. [See Shannon 2023 earlier for Lister’s rather solipsistic approach to identity.] This article is very much a summing up of many views – both academic and popular – on what Lister’s identity may have been and how it related to other women-loving-women of her era.
[Note: this article expands on the discussion with Emma Saltmarshe about the Ladies of Llangollen mentioned in McHugh 2023 earlier. Emma complained about the artificiality of the Plas Newydd environment. “Everything evidently done for effect.” But Lister notes that Emma tended to see meanings were none was intended. Gonda suggests that Emma’s intent in “a pity they were not married” is that their romantic friendship is for show and would be better as a sincere marriage]
Much of this article is Gonda’s thoughts and personal engagement with the underlying issues and the conversations that Lister’s newfound popularity of engendered.
Time period:
Place:
Event / person:
Sunday, August 2, 2026 - 11:00
No real summary on this one as it isn't directly relevant to the project.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Steidele , Angela. 2023. “Traveling in the Caucasus, Traveling in Time: Decoding Biography as Genre” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
10. Traveling in the Caucasus, Traveling in Time: Decoding Biography as Genre by Angela Steidele
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.
Time period:
Place:
Event / person:
Saturday, August 1, 2026 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 348 – 10th Anniversary Special: Interview with Linda Garber - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/08/01)
A transcript of the interview will be added when available.
Show Notes
An interview with Professor Linda Garber about her research into lesbian historical fiction.
Books and Media Mentioned
- Garber, Linda. 2022. Novel Approaches to Lesbian History. Palgrave. ISBN 978-3030854164
- Cruikshank, M. (ed) 1982. Lesbian Studies: Present and Future. The Feminist Press at CUNY. ISBN 978-0935312072
- Garber, Linda. 2001. Identity Poetics: Race, Class and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory. Columbia University Press.
- Schwartz, Selby Wynn. After Sappho. (novel)
- Keen, Suzanne. 2003 Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0802086846 (credit for the phrase “romance of the archives” which I’ve been misattributing)
- Martinac, Paula. Out of Time. (novel)
- Davies, Stevie. Impassioned Clay. (novel)
- Friend, Catherine. The Spanish Pearl. (novel)
- Dickinson (tv series)
- Gentleman Jack (tv series)
- Arnold, June Davis. The Cook and the Carpenter. (novel)
- Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present. William Morrow and Company, Inc. ISBN 0-688-00396-6
- Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness. (novel)
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire (movie)
- The Favourite (movie)
- Ammonite (movie)
- Saturday Night Live “Lesbian Period Drama” (sketch on YouTube)
- Desert of the Heart (movie) based on Jane Rule’s Desert Hearts
- A Knight’s Tale (movie)
- Giffney, Noreen, Michelle M. Sauer & Diane Watt (eds). 2011. The Lesbian Premodern. Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-61676-9
- The Belle of Amherst (movie)
- Gomez, Jewelle. The Gilda Stories. (novel)
- Giddings, Megan. The Women Could Fly (novel)
- Korn, Gabrielle. Yours for the Taking (novel)
- Pérez, Emma. Forgetting the Alamo, or, Blood Memory (novel
- McCollum, Hilary. As a Lover (novel)
- McCollum, Hilary. Golddigger (novel)
- Gagehabib, LaVerne. The Blacksmith and the Doctor (novel)
- Winterson, Jeanette. The Passion (novel)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Linda Garber Online
- Website: academic website
Major category:
LHMPTuesday, July 28, 2026 - 10:00
Although primarily focusing on Lister as an example of 19th century tourism and female travelers, this article is also interesting for the examination of her visit to the Ladies of Llangollen at Plas Newydd.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
McHugh , Kirsty. 2023. “‘The Art of Travelling Requires an Apprenticeship’: Anne Lister’s Diaries and Travel” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
Part IV: ‘Curious scenes’: Lister’s Travels; 9. ‘The Art of Travelling Requires an Apprenticeship’: Anne Lister’s Diaries and Travel by Kirsty McHugh
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.
Travel records not only document the sights and experiences, but also her advanced planning – how she researched the places she wanted to visit and what preparations she would need. While some of her travel writing was included in her regular daily journaling, in 1827 when she visited Switzerland and Italy, she kept a separate travel notebook, commenting that it allowed her to keep separate the more private material. (She also kept separate expense accounts.) As with some other aspects of her life, she considered publishing an account of her travels, but never did so. McHugh comments that while previous studies are focused on the more extraordinary aspects of Lister’s travels (and they were many), her journals are also valuable documentation of ordinary tourist practices of her day, and how they were changing.
Published itineraries and travel guide books are noted by Lister as part of her planning process, as she identified particular locations of interest and sketched out variable options for routes. Wales had become a popular destination for those with a Romantic sensibility, but Lister’s research also included geology, natural history, and industry.
Lister’s tour of Wales in 1822 began and ended in Llangollen, enabling her to arrange a visit. She was familiar with Ponsonby and Butler’s story from published accounts in newspapers and a 1791 article in La Belle Assemblée [sic]. [Note: the Wikipedia entry for La Belle Assemblée indicates that it began publication in 1806. It appears that the 1791 article being referred to is from the General Evening Post, which appears to be a reprint of an article titled “Extraordinary Female Affection” from Town and Country magazine, August 1790.]
[Note: Lister’s familiarity with Ponsonby and Butler is a good index to general public awareness of the couple and their “oddity.” Lister is surely not the only woman of the Georgian era who explored her own sexuality by contemplating Ponsonby and Butler’s lives.]
Published descriptions sometimes try to fit Ponsonby and Butler into a gender-differentiated model, framing Butler as the more “masculine” partner. Certain other visitors such as Lister’s neighbor Christopher Rawson commented negatively on their gender presentation. [Note: One wonders if, in that case, familiarity with Lister colored his attitude.] But most visitors were effusively positive in their views and Lister recorded that she saw no masculine affect to Butler. Lister’s commentary, both at the time and when later recounting the visit to Mariana, reveals that she saw in their lives a model for what she might aspire to. In crypt hand, she speculates that the relationship was not purely platonic. And Lister records a conversation with Rawson’s sister Emma (who had also traveled to Wales) who called them “two romantic girls” and said, “she had thought it a pity that they were not married; it would do them a great deal of good.” [Note: There’s a little more context for interpreting her comment in Gonda 2023, a couple of articles further into the collection. My initial reaction was to wonder whether we could distinguish between “it’s a pity they’re romantic friends and not married-equivalent same-sex partners” versus “it’s a pity that they can’t be married because they’re both female.” Certainly, women in such relationships called themselves “married” and this could have been Emma’s way of signaling her sympathy for Lester’s desires.]
Travel – which meant getting away from curious friends and family, as well as opportunities for forced proximity – provided Lister with chances to pursue romance with travel partners. Her relationship with Sibbella McLean developed while the two were traveling in Scotland.
Although there were many notable female travelers of the 19th century, traveling without male company – especially when it involved rough hiking and mountain climbing – was definitely considered unfeminine. Other female travelers drew similar negative comments to those Lister attracted. There was a careful balance to seeking adventure versus maintaining an unquestioned social reputation. Travel writer Sarah Murray, who was one of Lister’s sources, managed to stay on the “ladylike” side of the equation.
Excursions on foot typically involved the hiring of a local guide, though Lister sometimes found herself impatient with the need (or with the opinions of chance-met fellow travelers). [Note: having recently watched the BBC series The Other Miss Bennett, the mountain climbing episode in that show comes vividly to mind!]
Time period:
Place:
Pages
