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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
Have not seen the Netflix series but I do know that the real-life story of Anne Lister is incredible. This novel was extremely informative and not having any other to reference, this very good. Just goes to show that we don't know what we don't know.
I'm always amazed at how much Victorian society so majorly shifted social change.
I'm not sure what to make of the author's take on the Bronte sisters being influenced by Anne but it's not a far leap. I think this very small part of the book distracted me somewhat.
Would love to read all 4 million words by Anne but hell no. This will do just fine.
I'm always amazed at how much Victorian society so majorly shifted social change.
I'm not sure what to make of the author's take on the Bronte sisters being influenced by Anne but it's not a far leap. I think this very small part of the book distracted me somewhat.
Would love to read all 4 million words by Anne but hell no. This will do just fine.
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The TV series Gentleman Jack has piqued many people's interest (including my own) in reading more about the real-life Anne Lister, 19th century landowner, lesbian, traveller, and prolific diarist.
On the one hand, like a lot of reviewers, I have to be honest - she didn't seem that nice. She pursued potential partners largely for their fortunes, had several partners at a time despite promising life partnership, and was in favour of - and widely used - child labour. Her relationship with her final partner, Ann Walker, appeared particularly toxic, and coercive at times, with Lister setting out to acquire - and then spend - the majority of Walker's fortune.
On the other hand, as other reviewers have also noted, she was a 19th century landowner. If the subject was a man, few people would be surprised to hear of a 19th century landowner marrying for money, treating his partners with indifference and infidelity, or resisting social change which threatened his own privilege - so why should we feel shocked when the subject is a woman?
Additionally, what's remarkable about Anne Lister's diaries is their frankness. Amounting to five million words in all, there was little detail she left out - whether it cast her in a good light or not. Intended only for her eyes, they were brutally unsanitised. If any of us committed our true feelings and motives to paper for thirty years, would we come off that well?
Although the book draws heavily on diary extracts, other reviewers have found the depiction overly negative. I can't comment, having not read other biographies of Anne Lister, but I felt that Seidele largely allowed verbatim content to speak for itself. The question is how selective she was in choosing that content. The book ran a little long, but with five million words and thirty years to summarise (including extensive and remarkable travels across Europe which could fill a volume by themselves), I could forgive that. In any case, the true appeal of any biography of Anne Lister will always be Anne Lister.
On the one hand, like a lot of reviewers, I have to be honest - she didn't seem that nice. She pursued potential partners largely for their fortunes, had several partners at a time despite promising life partnership, and was in favour of - and widely used - child labour. Her relationship with her final partner, Ann Walker, appeared particularly toxic, and coercive at times, with Lister setting out to acquire - and then spend - the majority of Walker's fortune.
On the other hand, as other reviewers have also noted, she was a 19th century landowner. If the subject was a man, few people would be surprised to hear of a 19th century landowner marrying for money, treating his partners with indifference and infidelity, or resisting social change which threatened his own privilege - so why should we feel shocked when the subject is a woman?
Additionally, what's remarkable about Anne Lister's diaries is their frankness. Amounting to five million words in all, there was little detail she left out - whether it cast her in a good light or not. Intended only for her eyes, they were brutally unsanitised. If any of us committed our true feelings and motives to paper for thirty years, would we come off that well?
Although the book draws heavily on diary extracts, other reviewers have found the depiction overly negative. I can't comment, having not read other biographies of Anne Lister, but I felt that Seidele largely allowed verbatim content to speak for itself. The question is how selective she was in choosing that content. The book ran a little long, but with five million words and thirty years to summarise (including extensive and remarkable travels across Europe which could fill a volume by themselves), I could forgive that. In any case, the true appeal of any biography of Anne Lister will always be Anne Lister.
informative
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, Classism
Moderate: Racism
challenging
informative
This book would've been a 5/5 hadn't the author used a condescending tone in the last few chapters and seemed to handpick diary transcripts to justify what seems to be her opinions of Anne Lister.
The book is very well researched and an interesting read overall, but the tone of the writing started to annoy me from the point Anne and Ann marry and settle into Shibden Hall.
I got the feeling that, throughout the book, the author disapproved of Anne's actions that, some times, aren't the most correct and overlooked many details in her diary entries that definitely hinted that her marriage wasn't has catastrophic as the author made it out to be. Anne wasn't perfect, that was clear from the start.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the parts about Anne's travels and the things she saw (and marvelled at). I also enjoyed many parts of the chapters about her life with Ann Walker and feel the author did a disservice to both of them as painting Anne as a gold digger and Ann as a nervous wreck. Anne Lister wasn't as monstrous and Ann Walker was definitely not as weak as she is portrayed to be in many instances. However, I think many of these faults stem from the lack of transcripts from Anne Lister's diaries from that period. Had the author transcribed and decoded some diary passages, she certainly would've had material to get closer to her research subject.
I'd recommend this book to everyone who wants to know more about Anne Lister and her amazing life. However, I would advise potential readers to take a lot of the things in the last chapters with a grain of salt and to try and disregard the author's tone and simply enjoy Anne's accounts of her final travels with her wife.
Anne's obsession with her diary will certainly gift us with a complete account of her life during this period and, until all of it is transcribed and made public, we probably shouldn't make assumptions that may be taken out of context.
The book is very well researched and an interesting read overall, but the tone of the writing started to annoy me from the point Anne and Ann marry and settle into Shibden Hall.
I got the feeling that, throughout the book, the author disapproved of Anne's actions that, some times, aren't the most correct and overlooked many details in her diary entries that definitely hinted that her marriage wasn't has catastrophic as the author made it out to be. Anne wasn't perfect, that was clear from the start.
That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the parts about Anne's travels and the things she saw (and marvelled at). I also enjoyed many parts of the chapters about her life with Ann Walker and feel the author did a disservice to both of them as painting Anne as a gold digger and Ann as a nervous wreck. Anne Lister wasn't as monstrous and Ann Walker was definitely not as weak as she is portrayed to be in many instances. However, I think many of these faults stem from the lack of transcripts from Anne Lister's diaries from that period. Had the author transcribed and decoded some diary passages, she certainly would've had material to get closer to her research subject.
I'd recommend this book to everyone who wants to know more about Anne Lister and her amazing life. However, I would advise potential readers to take a lot of the things in the last chapters with a grain of salt and to try and disregard the author's tone and simply enjoy Anne's accounts of her final travels with her wife.
Anne's obsession with her diary will certainly gift us with a complete account of her life during this period and, until all of it is transcribed and made public, we probably shouldn't make assumptions that may be taken out of context.
I read an article about Anne Lister some months ago, and found it very interesting: the bare facts of her life are fascinating. An independent woman, Lister travelled extensively, and managed to take control of her uncle's estates due to her determination and strong business acumen. She was also a lesbian, and had many different female partners over her life, and lived openly with a woman, considering herself to be married. She wrote obsessively in her diary, using a secret code in a mixture of English and Ancient Greek to recount her relationships with women. However, the details of Lister's life are not as fascinating as the broad strokes. Her diary, while an important document about queer life in regency England, is not particularly interesting, and her relationships are full of arguments and impetuous decisions that are not compelling to read. A Tory, she spends a lot of time frittering away money and treating her tenants harshly. Undeniably, Lister is an interesting figure in queer history, but I think an article does her justice: she doesn't need a whole biography.
informative
slow-paced
Finally finished! This book has been a conundrum for me. Originally, I'd been eager to read about this 'Gentleman Jack' a woman supposedly ahead of her times and living the way she saw fit. I enjoy histories, women's studies and cultural explorations but I must admit the first part of this book was hard to get through.
As described and written in her own words, Anne Lister was a person I would not have wanted to deal with either as a friend or acquaintance. While I celebrated her understanding of her own sexuality and loved how she said that since it was her nature that meant her god could have nothing wrong with how she felt or 'he' would not have created her so, I found her, personally, to be the worst of landed gentlemen of the time period. In short, she was a cad. She was only ever in any relationship for what it would bring her and often was only in a relationship long enough to enjoy the 'conquering'. It seems Anne Lister was only ever fully enamored with Anne Lister.
The first part of the book is an extremely tedious account of Lister's 'romantic' conquests - not tedious because of the author Angela Steidele's retelling but because of Lister's way of recording everything (and I do mean everything) and her own interpretation of her life which only ever found fault with those around her and never with herself.
She was also quite the drama queen and constantly moaning and lamenting these trials she 'found' herself in even though almost 100% of the time, she herself was the reason for the problems. Especially since she was only attracted to women who would put themselves in a subservient role to herself with all sorts of her own rules placed upon them.
Ugh.
By the time her political ideation was explained, I had already developed a strong dislike for the woman but understanding even more about her (again, in her OWN words) only made me dislike her more. She literally believed herself better than other people and used child-labor in her coal mines. She demanded monogamy from her romantic entanglements even though she gave herself excuse after excuse to do just as she pleased with whomever she had her eyes set on. She even kept secret from her lovers that she had a venereal disease even though she was ticked at the woman who gave it to her for not mentioning it! She even married a couple of women at the same time! She hounded her last romantic interest and third wife, over money which she admitted over and over again in her journals was why she married the woman in the first place. In fact, she treated this person so badly that Anne Lister feared for the woman's sanity but kept on hounding her. Never once did Anne Lister think she might be the cause of any of her mistresses' distress.
Angela Steidele does a faithful recounting of Anne Lister's life and there are several interesting tidbits about the times and places in which Lister lived and traveled (especially a few interesting suppositions about the Brontes) but be warned! This woman seemed only to emulate the worst kind of gentleman of the early 1800's. If you've read Austen, think Wickham or Willoughby.
I would've given it a higher rating if I'd seen more of Steidele's hand in the book and less a perfect recounting of Lister's life.
As described and written in her own words, Anne Lister was a person I would not have wanted to deal with either as a friend or acquaintance. While I celebrated her understanding of her own sexuality and loved how she said that since it was her nature that meant her god could have nothing wrong with how she felt or 'he' would not have created her so, I found her, personally, to be the worst of landed gentlemen of the time period. In short, she was a cad. She was only ever in any relationship for what it would bring her and often was only in a relationship long enough to enjoy the 'conquering'. It seems Anne Lister was only ever fully enamored with Anne Lister.
The first part of the book is an extremely tedious account of Lister's 'romantic' conquests - not tedious because of the author Angela Steidele's retelling but because of Lister's way of recording everything (and I do mean everything) and her own interpretation of her life which only ever found fault with those around her and never with herself.
She was also quite the drama queen and constantly moaning and lamenting these trials she 'found' herself in even though almost 100% of the time, she herself was the reason for the problems. Especially since she was only attracted to women who would put themselves in a subservient role to herself with all sorts of her own rules placed upon them.
Ugh.
By the time her political ideation was explained, I had already developed a strong dislike for the woman but understanding even more about her (again, in her OWN words) only made me dislike her more. She literally believed herself better than other people and used child-labor in her coal mines. She demanded monogamy from her romantic entanglements even though she gave herself excuse after excuse to do just as she pleased with whomever she had her eyes set on. She even kept secret from her lovers that she had a venereal disease even though she was ticked at the woman who gave it to her for not mentioning it! She even married a couple of women at the same time! She hounded her last romantic interest and third wife, over money which she admitted over and over again in her journals was why she married the woman in the first place. In fact, she treated this person so badly that Anne Lister feared for the woman's sanity but kept on hounding her. Never once did Anne Lister think she might be the cause of any of her mistresses' distress.
Angela Steidele does a faithful recounting of Anne Lister's life and there are several interesting tidbits about the times and places in which Lister lived and traveled (especially a few interesting suppositions about the Brontes) but be warned! This woman seemed only to emulate the worst kind of gentleman of the early 1800's. If you've read Austen, think Wickham or Willoughby.
I would've given it a higher rating if I'd seen more of Steidele's hand in the book and less a perfect recounting of Lister's life.
So badly written. I think the story might have been interesting had there been some nuance. Enjoyed the first third of the book but the rest became repetitive. Writing style was quite dry and I did not enjoy the translation. Good narrator though.