Anne Lister

Anne Lister (1791–1840) was a well-off Yorkshire landowner, diarist and traveller who is often called "the first modern lesbian" for her clear self-knowledge and openly lesbian lifestyle. [cite web | last = Chafee | first = Ellen | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Lister, Anne (1791-1840) | work = glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture | publisher = | date = 2002 | url = http://www.glbtq.com/literature/lister_a.html | accessdate = 2007-03-16 ] Called Fred by her lover and "Gentleman Jack" by Halifax residents, she suffered from recorded harassment for her sexuality, and recognized her similarity to the Ladies of Llangollen. Her coded journals record her daily life, romances, and seductions, as well as her rigorous program of study. She also traveled widely.

She was a rural gentlewoman who directed the renovation and landscaping of Shibden Hall, near Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. She inherited the hall from her uncle.

Life

Anne was the daughter of Jeremy Lister who as a young man in 1775 served with the British 10th Regiment of Foot in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. He wrote a detailed account of the day's events, the original of which is kept at Shibden Hall.

During her life she wrote a four-million-word diary. Around one-sixth of the diary is encrypted and describes quite graphically her lesbian nature and affairs.

Her affair with a wealthy heiress, Ann Walker, was a story of local repute and her eventual marriage to Anne highly unusual.

During her life she adapted Shibden Hall quite significantly to her own design and took part in many activities that were not perceived as the norm for gentlewomen, such as owning a colliery.

She died of a fever at Koutais (now Kutaisi, Georgia) while travelling with Ann Walker. ["The Friend", Alan Bray, University of Chicago Press, 2003, ISBN 0226071804 [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b6O01T7JsvQC&pg=PA283&dq=%22Anne+Lister%22+died+Georgia&as_brr=3&sig=ACfU3U1Onffjv9ARpwUW8JUei1Ued2KzZA Google Books, retrieved 3 August 2008] ] Walker had her body embalmed and brought back to England, where she is buried in St. Annes Church (also called St. Anne's-in-the-Grove) Southowram, near Halifax, West Yorkshire. [ [http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/wtw/results/recordpreview_it.jsp?keyword1=architecture&directid=100314 St Annes Church, Southowram] , Calderdale Council website]

Notable quotations

"I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs." - Anne Lister, Journals, Oct 29, 1820 [The Anne Lister Papers, Olive Anderson, "History Workshop Journal", 1995 40(1):190-192, Oxford University Press]

"Yet my manners are certainly peculiar, not all masculine but rather softly gentleman-like. I know how to please girls." - Anne Lister, Journals, 1820 [" Lesbian Lives: Identity and Auto/biography in the Twentieth Century", Nicky Hallett, Pluto Press, 199, ISBN 0745311326 [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2yyGAAAAIAAJ&q=%22my+manners%22+%22I+know+how+to+please+girls%22&dq=%22my+manners%22+%22I+know+how+to+please+girls%22&client=firefox-a&pgis=1 Google Books] ]

References

ources

* Green, Muriel. "Miss Lister of Shibden Hall: Selected Letters (1800–1840)".
*Liddington, Jill. "Presenting the Past: Anne Lister of Halifax, 1791–1840". (Pennine Pens, 1994)
* Liddington, Green. "Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority: The Anne Lister Diaries and Other writings, 1833–36".
*Whitbread, Helena. "I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister 1791–1840". (Virago, 1988)
*Whitbread, Helena. "No Priest But Love: Excerpts from the Diaries of Anne Lister". (NYU Press, 1993)

External links

* [http://www.sappho.com/letters/a_lister.html Anne Lister Page at Sappho.com] — provides excerpts of her translated diaries
* [http://www.historytoherstory.org.uk/index.php?targetid=5 Anne Lister page at From History to Her Story: Yorkshire Women's lives on-line] — provides excerpts of her translated diaries, as well as images from the original
* [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Lister_grave.jpg/800px-Lister_grave.jpg Ann Lister's Family Grave site]
* [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Saint_Anns.jpg/800px-Saint_Anns.jpg Saint Ann's Church]
*NRA|P40894