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Books 2012: a good kiss?
Feb. 8th, 2012 12:16 amBooks 2012: 15
nonfiction
15. Helena Whitbread (ed.), The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. Virago Press, London, 2010. First published 1988.
I believe, though I am not entirely certain, that the material published in this 422-page paperback volume (indices included) is composed of that of two books first published in 1988 and 1992, respectively I Know My Own Heart and No Priest But Love, extracts from the diaries of Miss Anne Lister (1791-1840), a Yorkshire gentlewoman whose emotional and romantic attachments were entirely with other women. ("We had a good kiss," she writes in her code, and from the context it's clear that a "kiss" is not limited to the lips. Courtesy of her married lover, Miss Lister was to catch a venereal complaint, and transmit it to another of her amours.)
Regardless, those earlier volumes are long out of print, and this book is a fascinating look at Miss Lister's life and world within a single decade of her life, from 1816 to 1826. It appears the incidence of gentlewomen who liked or could be persuaded to like other women in and around Halifax and Leeds and York is rather higher than most histories, even social histories, care to acknowledge.
Miss Lister is a downright snob, concerned with matters of appearance and reputation, though by all accounts she cut an eccentric figure. Proud of her intellectual attainments, prone to passionate attachment and "getting into scrapes with women" as she herself puts it, occasionally a hypocrite, a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, classist, racist, and absolutely fascinating: I want to read the diaries for the rest of Miss Lister's life, now.
nonfiction
15. Helena Whitbread (ed.), The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. Virago Press, London, 2010. First published 1988.
I believe, though I am not entirely certain, that the material published in this 422-page paperback volume (indices included) is composed of that of two books first published in 1988 and 1992, respectively I Know My Own Heart and No Priest But Love, extracts from the diaries of Miss Anne Lister (1791-1840), a Yorkshire gentlewoman whose emotional and romantic attachments were entirely with other women. ("We had a good kiss," she writes in her code, and from the context it's clear that a "kiss" is not limited to the lips. Courtesy of her married lover, Miss Lister was to catch a venereal complaint, and transmit it to another of her amours.)
Regardless, those earlier volumes are long out of print, and this book is a fascinating look at Miss Lister's life and world within a single decade of her life, from 1816 to 1826. It appears the incidence of gentlewomen who liked or could be persuaded to like other women in and around Halifax and Leeds and York is rather higher than most histories, even social histories, care to acknowledge.
Miss Lister is a downright snob, concerned with matters of appearance and reputation, though by all accounts she cut an eccentric figure. Proud of her intellectual attainments, prone to passionate attachment and "getting into scrapes with women" as she herself puts it, occasionally a hypocrite, a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, classist, racist, and absolutely fascinating: I want to read the diaries for the rest of Miss Lister's life, now.
