Reviews - Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister

302 reviews for:

Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister

docked one star for a rushed conclusion (which I assume was to avoid spoilers for the next season, but) and a few editing errors, but whaaaat a fascinating life and a great companion read to the show.

caseythecanadianlesbrarian's review

3.0

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Anne Lister was a fascinating complicated person and this book presents her diaries and letters from the 1830s from when she met Ann Walker and when they were "married" ie season one of the show. This account firmly identifies Lister as a butch lesbian but doesn't mention that there is a lot of evidence of her gender nonconformity and that she didn't straightforwardly see herself as a woman, so that was disappointing. Butch lesbian is a totally valid interpretation of Lister from her writing but it doesn't feel right to pretend it's the only one.

There's a weird lack of contextualizing and attention to complexity too, like when there's an offhand comment about Lister visiting a scientist studying skull shape to "discover" racial difference and intelligence without mentioning how white supremacist and unscientific that is. Like, if you're not going to add anything useful and historicize, then just edit and print the diaries and letters as they are.

Anyway, I think there's room for Lister to be an important historical figure for both trans people and cis queer women, but this book is not interested in that multiplicity.

gabyk_lib's review

5.0

I dont normally like biographies but this one wasn't too bad. Dragged a bit in places but really interesting overall

wispsky's review

3.5

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

lauramarie83's review against another edition

2.5

informative slow-paced

Informative, and the diary entries are great additions. I thought it was slow paced and while I appreciate Anne’s life, didn’t connect with the storytelling here. I wasn’t a fan of having a second narrator in the audiobook for Anne’s voice.