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A review by moliveiradev
Gentleman Jack: A Biography of Anne Lister, Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist by Katy Derbyshire, Angela Steidele
2.0
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.