This tale of Georgian England from real diaries and letters shows how money, colour and social background created discord for two young women. The county of Yorkshire, made famous by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë who lived nearby, was where Anne and Eliza met. Both girls were born in 1791. Anne came from the poorest branch of a set of Halifax landed gentry. She wrote journals from 1806 when she was 15 until her death in 1840, and filed all her letters in date order, including Eliza's. All her papers were hidden away in her house until 1925, when the last Lister gave them to Halifax library. They form the text of this book.

Two 13-year-old schoolgirls pledge undying love, marry in secret and promise to live together when they leave school. But nothing works out as planned.This true story of Georgian England shows how money, skin colour and social background create discord for two young women.Anne Lister and Eliza Raine were both born in 1791. Anne was from the poorest branch of a long- established landed family and regarded herself as a boy. She wrote journals from the age of fifteen until she died, and filed all her letters in date order, including Eliza's. Her papers were hidden away until recently and are now stored in Halifax Archives, England.

The ground-breaking first collection of essays on Anne Lister, featuring both established and new scholars, a screenwriter and a novelist.

"This tale of Georgian England, from real diaries and letters, shows how money, colour and social background create discord for two young women."--Back cover.

Discover the extraordinary diaries of the real Anne Lister: the inspiration for Gentleman Jack and Emma Donoghue's new novel Learned By Heart 'Engaging, revealing, at times simply astonishing' SARAH WATERS '[Anne Lister's] sense of self, and self-awareness, is what makes her modern to us . . . The diaries gave me courage' JEANETTE WINTERSON 'The Lister diaries are the Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history' EMMA DONOGHUE When this volume of Anne Lister's diaries was first published in 1988, it was hailed as a vital piece of lost lesbian history. The editor, Helena Whitbread, had spent years painstakingly researching and transcribing Lister's extensive journals, much of which were written in an elaborate code - what Lister called her 'crypthand', which allowed her to record her life in intimate, and at times, explicit, detail. Until then, Anne Lister's lesbianism had been supressed or hinted at; this was the first time her story had been told. Anne Lister defied the role of nineteenth century womanhood: she was bold, fiercely independent, a landowner, industrialist, traveller and lesbian - a woman who lived her life on her own terms. These diaries include the years 1816-1824. The second volume, continuing Anne's story, THE SECRET DIARIES OF MISS ANNE LISTER: NO PRIEST BUT LOVE, is now available.

In 1834, Anne Lister made history by celebrating and recording the first ever known marriage to another woman. Now the basis for the HBO series Gentleman Jack, this is her remarkable, true story. Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist and a prolific diarist, whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife. This book introduces the real Gentleman Jack, featuring unpublished journal extracts decrypted for the first time by series creator Sally Wainwright and writer Anne Choma.