Sexuality in Translation: Anne Lister and the Ancients

A n n e L i s t e r , t h e n o w f A m o u s early nineteenth-century Yorkshire diarist who candidly recorded her romantic relationships and affairs with women over the course of three decades, has become a touchstone for queer and lesbian history. In terms of both scholarly and popular culture, Lister’s diary has been read as a unique document that has not only disproved what Terry Castle has called the “no-lesbians-before-1900” theory but also revealed the autonomy and agency of women with regard to questions of sexuality and desire.1 While Lister has been on the scholarly radar since 1988, thanks to Helena Whitbread’s publication of the first diary extracts, I Know My Own Heart, the past decade has seen a flurry of mainstream interest in Lister that includes a 2010 BBC docudrama, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, with its accompanying documentary, The Real Anne Lister, and Sally Wainwright’s BBC-HBO series, Gentleman Jack (2019), based on Lister’s courtship of and union to Ann Walker. Two biographies have been published in recent years: Anne Choma’s accompaniment to Wainwright’s series, Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister (2019), and Angela Steidele’s biography, Gentleman Jack: A Biography of Anne Lister, translated from the German in 2019.2 In 2017 a historical plaque was affixed to the Holy Trinity Church in York, where Lister and Walker shared a sacrament to celebrate their union, and the Lister diaries have been added to the UNESCO “Memory of the World” register. After 150 years of being