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Saturday, July 25, 2026 - 17:55
On August 25, 2026 I'll be releasing the book version of my project The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category. This is a revised and slightly expanded version of the blog series, based on reader feedback and some additional data that I was pointed to. It will be available both in ebook and print versions from all the usual sources. There are arguments for each format. In the print version, the footnotes are actual FOOTnotes, making for easier reference, but the graphs are in black-and-white (due to cost considerations). Also, it's a bit pricy ($16.99) as is often the case for print-on-demand books. The ebook version features color-coded graphs (which may make some aspects easier to follow), but the notes are grouped at the end of the (very long) chapters, making it difficult to refer back and forth. Because this was intended as an informative project for the community, I intend to be fairly generous about ebook "review copies" if asked.
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Saturday, July 25, 2026 - 11:00
Like a number of the articles in this collection, this is more about the general social context of Anne Lister's life, with little direct reference to her sexuality. But because of the detailed nature of her archives, we can trace more general patterns in the social dynamics of her time.
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LHMPFull citation:
Ulph, Cassandra. 2023. “‘Building Castles in the Air’: Anne Lister and Associational Life” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
7. ‘Building Castles in the Air’: Anne Lister and Associational Life by Cassandra Ulph
Evidently many English towns (also US towns) had a Literary and Philosophical Society during Lister’s era—it was an established genre of civic organization. A rare few survive to the present day, one notable example being Newcastle’s “Lit & Phil.”
This interesting article traces the history of the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society, other similar civic organizations, Lister’s participation in those organizations, and gender issues around membership and activity.
As the article doesn’t touch directly on sexuality, I won’t be summarizing it in detail. One of the more interesting aspects is how Lister’s quest for personal education as well as for civic influence led her to break through some silent barriers for women. She was the first woman elected to the Halifax Lit & Phil – the members concluding that there was no formal bar to women, though none had previously been admitted, and no other woman was admitted during her lifetime.
Most such organizations were exclusively male, either by rule or de facto, but women were beginning to make inroads, especially in newly-created societies. Some organizations created special membership categories available to women, so they could attend lectures and have access to libraries, while retaining administrative control to membership categories only available to men.
Lister saw her membership and her investment in civic resources as a legacy-building function, for herself and the Lister name, as well as supporting the cultural importance of Halifax in general. Attending cultural events that were open to members of all classes provided a context for socializing more casually with those outside her personal circles. For example, Lister used them when courting Miss Browne – someone she was reluctant to engage in social visiting with due to their class difference.
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Friday, July 24, 2026 - 11:00
The modern political landscape might suggest an association between queer lives and progressive politics, but history is more complicated than that. Like some of her contemporaries, Lister embraced what Lanser frames as a "compensatory conservatism," resting also on her status as a landowner and entrepreneur, where conservative politics to some extent helped balance out the eccentricities of her personal life.
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LHMPFull citation:
Lanser, Susan S. 2023. “Anne Lister’s Politics” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
Part III: ‘Born at Halifax’: Lister’s Politics, Local and Global; 6. Anne Lister’s Politics by Susan S. Lanser
Whatever the historic setting in which a sapphic story is being written, it’s crucial to research and understand the social and political context. But that aspect is largely outside the scope of the Project except where it directly affects the experience of sexuality.
# # #
As this article focuses on Lister’s political context and activity, it doesn’t have direct connections to her sexuality (though it does to her gender). Lister’s lifetime spanned a very busy political era for the UK, including the later consequences of the French Revolution, the rise of the industrial era, the abolition of the slave trade and then of slavery itself, and other significant events and changes. Through all this, Lister approached issues as a staunch Tory, supporting the Crown, the rights and privileges of landowners, and the special place of the Anglican church. Her attitudes paralleled those of some other female couples of her era, such as Ponsonby and Butler, in what Lanser has previously labeled a “compensatory conservatism” that may have acted to shield the radical aspects of her personal life. But – Lanser notes in the present article – it’s a bit more complicated than that.
The article explores not only the political landscape of her era, but Lister’s own actions and recorded thoughts. Fascinating reading, but I’m not going to summarize it further.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2026 - 10:00
Not all of the articles in this collection have the historic focus that's my primary interest. But if my teasers intrigue you, the collection is available through Open Access.
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Baylis-Green, Caroline. 2023. “Self-Conscious Closeting and Paradoxical Writing in Anne Lister’s Diaries” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
5. Self-Conscious Closeting and Paradoxical Writing in Anne Lister’s Diaries by Caroline Baylis-Green
I’m going to skim over this article because it falls in the category of “scholarship about modern philosophical theories” and doesn’t really say much about Lister’s historic context. In this case, the modern theory has to do with the concept of the closet. So it analyzes Listers’ practices around concealment and management of her personal life, but does so in a framework based on 20th century ideas about being closeted. Many of the historic texts and frameworks that are discussed are not examined in terms of how Lister engaged with them, but rather uses them as metaphors. (Just as an example, there is a discussion of “crypt” as indicating an enclosed burial chamber, connecting this to the concept of “closet,” where there’s no basis for thinking this was a connection Lister made in speaking of her “crypt hand.”)
The article does bring in some interesting comparative topics, such as the use of code in other peoples’ diaries. But all in all, this article is of little value to an understanding of the historical context of Lister’s life.
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Tuesday, July 21, 2026 - 09:00
Everything I've read by Stephen Turton on the history of queer language has been fascinating. This is no exception.
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LHMPFull citation:
Turton, Stephen. 2023. “‘My Use of the Word Love’: Lister, Language and the Dictionary” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
Part II: ‘My spirit’s oil’: Lister Reading, Lister Writing; 4. ‘My Use of the Word Love’: Lister, Language and the Dictionary by Stephen Turton
[Note: check out Turton’s other articles on queer lexicography, especially Turton 2024. I’ll be skipping briefly over some topics he covers in those.]
This article, rather than focusing only on Lister’s sexual vocabulary, begins by examining her relationship and that of other lesbians to dictionaries and their coverage (or mostly lack thereof) of lesbian related vocabulary. Attempts to fill the gaps in this coverage – or at least commentary on the gaps – has included poet Judy Grahn’s invention of a history and definition for “bulldyke” when she could find none in existing publications, or Wittig and Zeig’s Lesbian Peoples: Materials for a Dictionary, which symbolically left a blank page for the entry on Sappho.
Lister engaged with dictionaries in multiple ways: compiling a glossary of sexual vocabulary she found and eventually collecting as many as 39 dictionaries, both for language learning and specialized reference works. Using Lister’s extensive catalog of the books she owned and read, Turton explores her access to sexual vocabulary and her creation or adoption of words for her topics of special interest.
Lister’s journals document how she used dictionaries, not only for definitions, but to learn to correct spelling and pronunciation. Dictionaries of her time recognized that men’s and women’s use of language could differ, but – being written by men – this usually meant disparaging female usage and stylistics. Lexicographical sexism also meant that examples of usage were drawn from male authors even when the words were described as “women’s cant.”
Dictionary definitions of sexual vocabulary were often concealed by using Latin, under the assumption that few women would have access by that means. Lister was not immune to the impulse to control (other) women’s speech, disapproving of even her close friends using “vulgar language” that was no different from what she herself used in her own journals.
Lister was exposed to words like “tribade” and “olisbos” (dildo) via Latin and Greek dictionaries, as well as through classical literature. Medical dictionaries introduced her to words such as “clitoris” (see previous article) and their associated concepts such as “clitorisme” (to engage in sex with a woman using a clitoris).
Lister picked up and used slang and euphemistic terms for sexual concepts from her reading, but she also used terms that she may have invented – or at least, for which she is the earliest or only record. Her use of “queer” to refer to the genitals (evidently of either sex) has been explored in detail. (See Lanser 2003.) It isn’t always clear whether she used these terms in conversation or only in her journal. In some cases, she alternates a more common term, such as “courses” for menstruation, with a more idiosyncratic (or dialectal?) one like “cousin” for the same.
There are examples where it’s reasonably clear that Lister invented an expression, as when her journal traces the development of “going to Italy” to indicate a specific type of relationship, and provides many examples of it being used in conversations with Mrs. Barlow.
Another example of listers linguistic inventiveness was the development of a symbolic vocabulary for specific sex acts (a + or X or “cross” for orgasm, a glyph probably representing Greek “os” for the sex act she euphemized as “kiss”) as well as adopting specific symbols to name intimate friends.
Sometimes the ambiguity of ordinary words led her to clarify her meaning, as when she explained to Mary Vallance what she meant by “love” in order to make sure Vallance was answering the correct question. Lister (in common with many other female couples) used the language of marriage (marry, marriage, husband, wife, mistress) to talk about her relationships.
The lack of many surviving records from Lister’s correspondents makes it hard to determine which of her sexual vocabulary was shared, but there is at least one entry in Ann Walker’s diary where “k[iss]” is used in an implied sexual context. It would not be surprising if this usage was more common as it parallels French “baiser” with the same dual meeting.
The article notes a pre-existing use of “grubble” to mean sexual fondling or groping. There is also a discussion of the context of listers disparagement of “sapphic” love, which she associates specifically with a dildo.
[Note: It could be hard to determine whether this is a personal definition, or a product of the tendency of literature that uses the word “sapphic” to also participate in the 18th century fascination with dildos. I hope to be able to explore this question further as I expand my database of vocabulary examples – just as I want to question the assertion that the word “tribade” was strongly associated with the motif of the macro-clitoral lesbian.]
Looking at dictionaries from another direction, Lister herself has entered the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as part of an attempt to redress the work’s gender bias (expanding the work’s original 5% female content to 10%).
As Turton documents extensively in his 2024 book, vocabulary about female sexuality, and especially lesbianism, was deliberately excluded from the intended-to-be-comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary until its second supplement, published in 1972-86. But although the OED has made an attempt to include more women’s writing in its citation sources, none of the citations for “sapphic” are by a female author. Lister’s writings are cited under eight dictionary entries, none of them related to sexuality.
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Saturday, July 18, 2026 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 347 - On the Shelf for June & July 2026 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2026/07/18)
Welcome to On the Shelf for—well, this is a catch-up episode covering both June and July 2026, after my broken arm-related vacation. I’m back to typing with both hands now, though it’s a bit slower and more painful than usual and I may continue using my computer’s speech-to-text function sometimes to help out.
The schedule is going to continue to be a bit discombobulated in August—not due to the arm, but because I have a special interview lined up to celebrate the podcast’s 10th anniversary at the beginning of the month, so the On the Shelf for August will be shifted later. (Originally I was thinking of doing some special episodes to air something every week in August to celebrate, but as I type this, my wrist is suggesting the path of sanity and I’m backing off on that.)
I’ll also be traveling in August: the Golden Crown Literary Society conference at the beginning of the month and Worldcon at the end of the month. If you’ll be at either of those events, please track me down to say hi.
And while we’re talking about 10th anniversaries, remember that next year will be the 10th and final year of the fiction series. Submissions won’t be open until January (as usual) but check out the call for submissions on the website (see the show notes) and spread the word.
Publications on the Blog
With two months to catch up on, plus my usual blogging binge for Pride month, there are a lot of publications to mention. I started out with several articles on the 18th century: Lisa Moore’s study of Mary Delany’s intimate friendships, Sally O’Driscoll’s analysis of the parallel development of the idea of “the passionless woman” and the image of the lesbian, Julie Peakman’s chapter on lesbians in her book Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century.
Then I tackled an assorted collection of biographical articles: an anonymous 17th century scandal sheet about Queen Christina of Sweden, Carmeta Abbott’s study of two 17th century paintings of a French noblewoman depicted in male clothing, Rudolph Bell’s commentary on the Benedetta Carlini archives, Nicole Reynolds’ study of the “cottage-core” image of the Ladies of Llangollen, and an article by Martha Vicinus on lesbian hints in the Victorian Codrington divorce trial.
After that I took a several-week tour through Anne Lister scholarship, starting with Dannielle Orr’s dissertation A Sojourn in Paris, followed up with the collection Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’ edited by Chris Rouston and Caroline Gonda.
Book Shopping!
Somewhere in there I had time to do some book shopping and have acquired Rictor Norton’s The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity. A skim through the contents confirms my suspicion that the book is primarily male-focused (which the author acknowledges), containing a single chapter about how maybe lesbian history looks different from what the rest of the book covers.
I also picked up a general history book for my own research: Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814-1852 by Philip Mansel. Alas for my interests, it does seem to be focused entirely on “monarchy and revolution” with very little coverage of the lives of ordinary Parisians.
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
I’m organizing the new and recently released books a little differently this time, due to the longer time period I’m covering. Usually I group them by the month of release, but this time I’ll group them by setting. I’ll also be condensing the summaries significantly, due to the number of titles. I prefer doing a dramatic reading of the actual cover copy – I hope you enjoy that too! –but we have about 30 titles this episode and that would take too long.
Counter to the question of setting, there were some interesting themes emerging from looking at so many books at once (including ones with future publication dates). I’m seeing a lot of the “romance of the archives” type of plot, where a contemporary person comes across some documents related to a queer relationship in the past, and their exploration or tracking down of the details leads to a new understanding of their own sexuality and relationships. I’ve been a little more selective about which of these I consider to be “historical fiction” as opposed to being solidly contemporary stories. I found a good handful of books that are fictionalizations of the lives of actual historic individuals. And, of course, we have our usual assortment of pirate stories, wild west stories, and vaguely Regency/Victorian romances.
Since there aren’t any titles with classical settings this time, we’ll start with medieval and Renaissance-era stories.
Dreaming of Jerusalem by Susie Helme follows Ysabeau through a 14th century landscape of crusades, pirates, Mongols, and harems when an attack that kills her father sets her free of conventional expectations to seek vengeance and a different future.
Silk Road Runaways by Christine Inserra, set in 15th century Mongolia, traces the friendship and eventual love between two young women, one an eagle huntress, as they face raiding marauders, brutal warlords, and the well-meaning plans that relatives have for their lives. The girls must fight not only for survival, but for the freedom to choose their own future.
Chivalry in the Shadows by Meg Merriet Wahlberg from Parkwood Manor Press takes up the motif popular in actual medieval epics of the cross-dressing female knight, complete with convenient twin brother, as Rowen seeks to win the hand of Lady Amarys in a tournament.
With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho by Ashley Douglas from Headline Press imagines a life for the author of the homoerotic poem in the Maitland manuscript. (Check out podcast episode 128 for the poem in question.)
The next group of books have in common being about pirates, which also conveniently groups them in the 17-18th centuries.
Bound By Silk & Salt Water by Caren Cross from Stonecastle Publications follows fearsome pirate Katarina DeWitt on her path of vengeance against the British, from the North Sea to the coast of Arabia. But when she unexpectedly captures the Mughal princess Amara Devi, all her plans go overboard.
Tempest: A Novel of Anne Bonny, the Pirate Queen Who Disappeared by K. Knight is what it says on the tin: the story of Anne Bonny, recounted as an old woman.
The two books in the Ruby Reaper duology by Eline Evans (The Ruby Reaper and The Emerald Eclipse) spans the Atlantic from Denmark to the Carribbean as scandalous heiress Ria runs away with pirate captain Ana de Orellana and fights for her place as a buccaneer, as the ship fights those who hunt pirates.
We have the usual assortment of Regency romances, both adapting existing characters and original ones.
Mr. Moore by Giny Morales uses gender disguise as the motif for a different sort of marriage of convenience. But does Kate Sullivan know what she’s getting into when she offers an arrangement to the mysterious Mr. Moore?
The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley by Lindz McLeod from Carina Adores is the second of McLeod’s reworkings of Jane Austen, following characters after the last page of the existing books. Caroline Bingley wants to remake her personality and Georgiana Darcy seems like the perfect model for her to follow. Before long, their lessons in finding love and acceptance blossom into something completely unexpected.
Caroline's Courtesan (The Comerford Courtesans #4) by Jess Michaels from The Passionate Pen is, as often happens, the only title in this series with a female couple. The widowed Caroline Ashfield can do what she wants, read what she enjoys and support her scandalous nieces to her heart’s desire. Everything is perfect except for her constant thoughts about celebrated courtesan Simone Stanford.
I hesitated a bit over including Pretence & Pretentiousness by Lynn Kear because the cover art is pretty clearly AI-generated, but there were no other signals casting doubt on the book itself. In a break from stories of transgressive and scandalous Regency heroines, Jane Dudley’s quest for a life where she can simply be herself with the woman she loves is quiet and covert.
Moving on to the Victorian era, the following stories are centered on England.
A Season of Teeth and Silk by Henriette Twinne sees the arrival of American heiress Eleanor "Nell" Alcott in London, with a marriage to an impoverished aristocrat all arranged. But the woman hired to coach her on behavior and deportment entices her down a different and more dangerous path.
The Art of Longing by Michael David matches wealthy widow Eleanor Ashworth with the woman hired to paint an official portrait to display at her charitable foundation. After a lifetime of proper behavior, two women in their forties discover that it is never too late to break free of the social rules, the constraints, the loaded silences of women who must speak in code and learn to inhabit their own lives.
The Green Seal (Blackthorn Hall Romances # 3) by E. L. Vale features Lady Honoria Trenchard, who has spent a lifetime “fixing” reputations—but sometimes that has required sacrificing others. A sealed box containing old secrets forces her to revisit one of those trade-offs.
Skipping across the ocean, we have our usual assortment of stories set in the American West.
What the Willow Kept (The Women of Sapphire #1.5) by L. Creeke is identified as a prequel novella to When Embers Find Her (The Women of Sapphire #1). This suggests that it might be best to read Embers first, out of chronological sequence. Willows starts in Appalachia when childhood friends and lovers Grace and Lizzie flee home to escape Lizzie’s arranged marriage. But the American frontier isn’t any safer than what they left behind. It isn’t clear how the Grace of this story relates to the Charlotte Grace in Embers, though presumably there is some sort of connection. Charlotte, too, is trying to escape patriarchal oppression in the western desert, when Sawyer Hayes finds her (again?) with hope of rescue. But Sawyer has her own dark past and may not be a reliable savior.
The Wrong Widow (Cielo Seco #1) by D. S. Briar follows the familiar trope of a mail-order bride arriving in the West to find her unmet husband dead and his sister uncertain what to do with this newly-arrived stranger. As might be expected, they gradually fall in love, but the question of the husband’s death--and who might have profited from it--remains.
Gold Rush 1860 by Randa Hink is a found family story set in Oregon where two women need to protect the orphaned girl they have adopted from the powerful men who killed her family.
Two Whoops and a Holler by Carmilla Deane from Lewis and Young Publishing follows Harriet Jane Grant, a Black woman bounty hunter in Wyoming Territory. All Harriet dreams of is a quiet ranch life with her lover Grace, but she needs one last bounty to finance that dream.
Backtracking only a little to pick up the non-western America stories, we start with a graphic novel.
Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden from Drawn and Quarterly uses a pictorial format to tell the story of a turn of the 19th century female couple in New England who were accepted by their community as the equivalent of married. My blog covered the academic publication by Rachel Hope Cleves who did the actual archival work of uncovering, analyzing, and presenting this fascinating couple. There’s been a bit of online buzz about how Cleves feels her work was not adequately credited in this graphic novel, given that—unlike many historic figures—she is basically the only published source about them. I suggest enjoying both publications.
Disfigured (New York's Gilded Age #4) by Joseph P. Garland from Dermody House follows Nora Ferguson from a tragedy in Ireland that leaves her scarred to a new life as a governess in Pennsylvania, then finding a new career as a writer. The cover copy notes “two romances, one straight, one sapphic.”
Becoming Legends Elsie-Bessie: A Love Story (book #1) by Barbara Barna Abel & Shannon McMahon Lichte from Abelintermedia is another fictionalized real-person story, this time of a romantic partnership spanning Gilded Age New York and Belle Epoque Paris between two accomplished women who transcended the limitations imposed on them. Evidently this is the first of a three-part series.
Stories set in the 20th century fall generally into those roughly around World War I and those roughly around World War II, though not necessarily about the wars specifically. (I confess I’ve cut back on including books set in the 1960s and later, in part for space reasons.)
The earlier group gives us Lena and Miss Cawkwell by Julie Bozza from LIBRAtiger. Two women whose horizons have been expanded by the need to fill previously-male occupations during the war find their romantic horizons similarly shifted.
Murder by Degrees by Rachel Ford is another mystery staring gender-crossing Alec Thatch and wife Merry. Depending on how you interpret Alec’s identity, this might or might not be considered sapphic, but I find the depiction true to its era.
A Blue Note by Katrina Jackson is a “romance of the archives” featuring a contemporary researcher’s self-discovery in the context of studying figures of the Harlem Renaissance.
The World War II-adjacent books start with Little Wild by Laura Evans from Henry Holt and Co. A country house party sees Joanie and Margaret’s covert romance outed as their imminent elopement turns to catastrophe and growing terror.
The Malign Ghosts of Summer by Ann McMan from Bywater Books traces the lives of four female friends through decades of tragedy, friendship, and intimacy.
Cold Water by C. R. Ellery plunges us into murder and intrigue in the wake of WWII, with the lives and secrecy of a female couple threatened by the fall-out.
The Rude Bird (New Orleans Noir #1) by M. R. Dimond from Rock Rose Press takes on the standard hard-boiled detective story with a female protagonist.
What Am I Reading?
So what have I been reading? You might think that with the enforced inactivity due to my broken arm, I would have gotten a lot of reading in. Alas, you would be wrong. Being broken is simply exhausting and while reading doesn’t take that much energy, I was using all I had to spare to read for the blog and write that up. I wasn’t bicycling, so I didn’t have my usual context for listening to audiobooks, and reading physical books is tricky one-handed. But I did listen to a few things before all that happened.
I got caught up on the Murderbot series with Platform Decay by Martha Wells. This one had a slightly different sort of plot than previously, with some consequences of previous events coming back to complicate things. It’s still more action-adventure than my taste, but that’s ok.
A sale at the Libro.fm site led me to finally try some Terry Pratchett. Although a lot of my friends rave about his work, my previous exposure had been entirely through tv and movie adaptations and they simply hadn’t grabbed me enough to follow up. But I read Monstrous Regiment, which takes the trope of the cross-dressing woman joining the army and runs with it to ridiculous extremes, and found it quite enjoyable—though not so much that I’m going to binge Pratchett’s entire body of work.
I also had two “didn’t finish” titles. Nnedi Okorofor’s Death of the Author is an ambitious literary work that slides into being science fiction by an interesting angle. But in the end it wasn’t grabbing me. I’m being unreasonably hard to please these days. The other title that didn’t work for me was J.A. Stevens’ A Change of Pace, set in an alternate queer-normative Regency, with a rakish protagonist and a great many side characters making bad decisions. Unfortunately for me, the alternative aspect of the worldbuilding included removing most of the aspects of queer history that I enjoy reading about, so it might as well have been pure fantasy or contemporary.
One of these days I need to make a list of the queer historicals I do love, and what I love about them, so people can suggest titles with a better chance of hitting the spot for me.
Show Notes
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Moore, Lisa L. 2005. “Queer Gardens: Mary Delany's Flowers and Friendships” in Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 39, No. 1 (Fall, 2005), pp. 49-70
- O’Driscoll, Sally. 2003. “The Lesbian and the Passionless Woman: Femininity and Sexuality in 18th century England” in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 44.2-3. p.103-31
- Peakman, Julie. 2004. Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century. Atlantic Books, London. Chapter 8 “Tribadism: ‘A New Sort of Sin’”
- Anonymous. 1697. The history of the intrigues & gallantries of Christina, Queen of Sweden, and of her court whilst she was at Rome faithfully render’d into English from the French original. London: Richard Baldwin.
- Abbott, Carmeta. 1993. “The Portrait as Text: Two Depictions of Madame de Saint-Balmon (1607-1660)” in Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice vol. 19, No. 1.
- Bell, Rudolph M. 1987. “Renaissance Sexuality and the Florentine Archives: An Exchange” in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3: pp. 485-511
- Reynolds, Nicole. 2010. “Cottage Industry: The Ladies of Llangollen and the Symbolic Capital of the "Cottage Ornée"” in The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 51, No. 1/2: 211-227
- Vicinus, Martha. “Lesbian Perversity and Victorian Marriage: The 1864 Codrington Divorce Trial” pp.92-94 in Journal of British Studies 36, no. 1 (1997).
- Liddington, Jill. 1993. “Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax (1791-1840): Her Diaries and the Historians” in History Workshop, 35: 45-77.
- Orr, Dannielle. 2006. A Sojourn in Paris 1824-25: Sex and Sociability in the Manuscript Writings of Anne Lister (1791-1840). (Doctoral Dissertation, Murdoch University)
- Roulston, Chris & Caroline Gonda, eds. 2023. Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
- Book Shopping
- Norton, Rictor. 1997. The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-33892-3
- Mansel, Philip. 2001. Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814-1852. St. Martin's Press, New York. ISBN 0-312-30857-4
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Dreaming of Jerusalem by Susie Helme
- Silk Road Runaways by Christine Inserra
- Chivalry in the Shadows by Meg Merriet Wahlberg
- With My Own Hand: The secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho by Ashley Douglas
- Bound By Silk & Salt Water by Caren Cross
- Tempest: A Novel of Anne Bonny, the Pirate Queen Who Disappeared by K. Knight
- The Ruby Reaper (The Ruby Reaper #1) by Eline Evans
- The Emerald Eclipse (The Ruby Reaper #2) by Eline Evans
- Mr. Moore by Giny Morales
- The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley by Lindz McLeod
- Caroline's Courtesan (The Comerford Courtesans #4) by Jess Michaels
- Pretence & Pretentiousness by Lynn Kear
- A Season of Teeth and Silk by Henriette Twinne
- The Art of Longing by Michael David
- The Green Seal (Blackthorn Hall Romances # 3) by E. L. Vale
- What the Willow Kept (The Women of Sapphire #1.5) by L. Creeke
- When Embers Find Her (The Women of Sapphire #1) by L. Creeke
- The Wrong Widow (Cielo Seco # 1) by D. S. Briar
- Gold Rush 1860 by Randa Hink
- Two Whoops and a Holler by Carmilla Deane
- Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden
- Disfigured (New York's Gilded Age #4) by Joseph P. Garland
- Becoming Legends Elsie-Bessie: A Love Story (book #1) by Barbara Barna Abel & Shannon McMahon Lichte
- Lena and Miss Cawkwell by Julie Bozza
- Murder by Degrees by Rachel Ford
- A Blue Note by Katrina Jackson
- Little Wild by Laura Evans
- The Malign Ghosts of Summer by Ann McMan
- Cold Water by C. R. Ellery
- The Rude Bird (New Orleans Noir # 1) by M. R. Dimond
- What I’ve been consuming
- Platform Decay by Martha Wells
- Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
- Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorofor
- A Change of Pace by J.A. Stevens
- Call for submissions for the 2027 LHMP audio short story series. See here for details.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMPFriday, July 17, 2026 - 20:00
Anne Lister was widely read and infinitely curious about scientific topics. When she turned her curiosity to the human body, there was an underlying purpose.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Clark, Anna. 2023. “Anne Lister’s Search for the Anatomy of Sex” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
3. Anne Lister’s Search for the Anatomy of Sex by Anna Clark
This article explores Lister’s sources of anatomical knowledge and how they affected her embodied understanding of erotic response. The question begins with an odd fact: although Lister first recorded the word “clytoris” in 1814, at age 22, it wasn’t until 17 years later that she describes clearly identifying her own clitoris. What can make sense of this for a woman who was deeply and clinically interested in her own sexuality?
The primary answer (to jump ahead to the conclusion) is that the ambiguity and vagueness of the materials she had available led to her confusing the cervix for the clitoris, and then not understanding how it was supposed to be at the seat of female pleasure.
The article lays out of the groundwork of prevalent theories about the analogy of male and female anatomy. Three elements contributed to her confusion. First, theories that described the vagina/uterus as analogous to an inverted penis, combined with descriptions of the clitoris as like a miniature penis, led her to expect it to be located inside the vagina. Second, although medical texts of the 16th and 17th century were the first to give technical descriptions of genital anatomy, including the so-called “rediscovery of the clitoris,” by the 18th to 19th century, focus had shifted to reproductive anatomy, in which the clitoris was not considered to participate. (In part, this was due to no longer considering female orgasm to be essential for conception.) Third, as medical texts became oriented towards a general readership that included women, descriptions related to sex and reproduction were made more vague and euphemistic. Lister also had to deal with texts that, when they did mention women’s non-heterosexual activities, did so disparagingly. Though Lister seems to have been adept at reading counter to such texts.
Due to Lister’s habit of recording her reading in detail, we can know exactly which textual materials she drew sexual knowledge from. We also know that she found references to female homosexuality in classical texts, and made lists of sexual vocabulary found there.
Although the classical material was disparaging of lesbianism, this doesn’t seem to have colored Lister’s views. It took her a little more effort to shake off the attitudes toward masturbation found in texts such as Onania. In early journals, Lister described her masturbation (carefully recorded with a cross in journal entries) as “shameful” and “a vile habit,” but these negative references disappear after 1825.
It was Lister’s practice, when touching on sexual matters in conversation, to feign ignorance until she had elicited the other person’s degree of sexual knowledge, and only then, if she judged it wise, to admit her own knowledge. We see this in her conversations with Mrs. Barlow, where she elicits Barlow’s opinion that there was “little harm” in sex between women, before engaging in a discussion of how they understood biblical references considered to touch on the subject. (They concluded that biblical “onanism” referred to coitus interruptus, and that the reference to women participating in “that which is against nature” referred to anal sex. Thus, they eliminated possible biblical condemnations of lesbianism.)
Lister developed a detailed vocabulary related to sexual experience. [Note: Some seems to have been an idiosyncratic use of ordinary vocabulary, but some may be drawn from existing usage that hasn’t been otherwise recorded.] In the Eliza Raine era, she uses “felix” (happy) to document sexual encounters as well as masturbation. Later, she uses “kiss” to document orgasm during sexual encounters, with various degrees of satisfaction described. “Kiss” could also be literal, and the dual meaning may have been adopted from the dual senses of French “baiser.” [Note: As Orr 2023 suggests, Lister’s “kiss” also appears to involve face-to-face genital contact, with the expectation of mutual pleasure.]
It isn’t clear to what extent Lister’s specific vocabulary was shared by her lovers as opposed to being private. In one case she records a lover referring to “using the fingers” in a context that Lister might have described as “grubbling.” This article provides the first source for “grubbling” (manual stimulation of a clothed partner) that I’ve encountered, noting that it’s included in Johnson’s dictionary as “to feel in the dark” with a citation from Dryden’s translation of Ovid’s The Art of Love as “to grubble, or at least to kiss.” There are earlier references to the word meaning “to grope,” so there’s a solid basis for believing that Lister picked it up from existing usage. (See also Turton 2023 following.)
Another Lister term that could be idiosyncratic or possibly picked up from dialectal usage is “queer” to refer generally to the female genitals, possibly connected to “quim” with the same sense. (See Lanser 2003)
The specific spelling “clytoris” in Lister’s first record of the word suggests she encountered it in the popular sex manual Aristotle’s Masterpiece, in which the spelling is found and which Lister records having read at various times between 1817 and 1821. This work was half sex manual, half erotica, but lacked illustrations. It describes the clitoris as the “seat of venereal pleasure” in women, as being similar to a penis and capable of erection, and as being located near the “neck” or “door” of the womb. (The book doesn’t describe the cervix.) Given the ambiguity of this description (“womb” might refer to the uterus or to the combination of uterus plus vagina) and to the suggestion of a far more prominent “erect clitoris” than most women were likely to experience, it’s understandable that Lister could have overlooked the actual organ in her search for something interior and more prominent. Various journal entries make it clear that she thought the cervix was what was being described, but her own examination failed to produce any pleasure from it, for herself or her lovers.
In contrast, Lister clearly understood the pleasure of stimulating “the top of the queer” and that orgasm was “produced on the surface.”
Being familiar with texts that attributed female same-sex desire to an enlarged clitoris, Lister considered whether this could be a cause for her own desires, but found no physical formation that could account for it. She did, however, speculate on the possibility that she could enlarge her clitoris – perhaps buy an operation – sufficiently to use it for penetrative sex. (This was during the era when she still thought the references were to the cervix.) She also speculated on whether it was possible for female ejaculation to cause pregnancy. [Note: This is before general understanding of the actual biology of fertilization.]
The article has an extensive discussion of Lister’s interest in, and pursuit of, scientific knowledge, which was a significant goal of her visits to Paris. It wasn’t until she studied the illustrated plates of the medical texts by the Cloquet brothers in 1831 that she finally was able to connect descriptions of the clitoris with its anatomical location – a discovery that she celebrated by “incurring a cross.
The French medical texts she studied tended to follow descriptions of the clitoris with theories about its enlargement and the association with lesbianism. While these discussions were negative in tone, Lister was quite practiced in reading against such texts, and doesn’t seem to have been infected with their attitudes.
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Sunday, July 12, 2026 - 14:27
Major category:
LHMPThe Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast will be open for submissions in January 2027 for short stories in the lesbian historic fiction genre, to be produced in audio format for the podcast, as well as published in text on the website.
I strongly advise authors to review these guidelines thoroughly before submitting. If your submission doesn't meet the requirements, you will have wasted both of our time.
Technical Details
We will accept short fiction of any length up to 5000 words, which is a hard limit. We will be publishing four stories. (If we get some really great flash fiction, there’s the possibility of doubling up if the total meets the word count limit.)
We will be paying professional rates: $0.08/word.
The contract will be for first publication rights in audio and print (i.e., the story must not have appeared in either format previously) with an exclusive one year license. (Exceptions can be arranged by mutual consent for “best of” collections within that term.)
Instructions on how to submit are given below. NO SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED OUTSIDE THE SUBMISSION PERIOD OF JANUARY 2027.
By submitting a story, you are warranting that the work is not generated in part or in whole using Large Language Models such as ChatGPT, etc.
What We’re Looking For
Stories must be set in an actual historic culture--i.e., a specific time and place in history--and the plot and characters should be firmly rooted in that time and place. (No time-travel or past memories, please.)
Stories may include fantastic elements that are appropriate to the historic setting. For example, they can include fantastic or supernatural events or beings that people of that era considered to be real. Or stories may be modeled on the fantastic literature of a specific historic era and culture. The limits to this will necessarily be subjective.
Stories must be set before 1900. We love to see stories that reach beyond the popular settings of 19th century America and England unless you do something new and interesting in them. I try to balance a diversity of settings and if you aren't competing with the rest of the 33% of stories with 19th c Anglophone settings, you have an advantage. [Also: see sensitivity note below.]
Romance is optional, and romance stories should have some other significant plot element in addition to the romance. A developing romance tends to take up a lot of plot space and we've all read a lot of "girl meets girl but they're the only two lesbians in the world." There are great stories that could be done with existing couples, friendly exes, or networks of like-minded women, just for a change.
We are not looking for erotica. Sex may be implied but not described. (It’s difficult to include both erotic content and a substantial non-romantic plot in short fiction. I’d rather that stories focus on the plot and characters.)
Stories should feature lesbian-relevant themes. What do I mean by that, especially given the emphasis the LHMP puts on how people in history understood sexuality differently than we do? This is where we get into “I know it when I see it” territory. The story should feature protagonist(s) who identify as women, whose primary emotional orientation within the scope of the story is toward other women. This is not meant to exclude characters who might identify today as bisexual or who have had relationships with men outside the scope of the story. But the story should focus on same-sex relations. Stories that involve cross-gender motifs (e.g., "passing women," "female husbands") should respect trans possibilities [see sensitivity note below].
Stories need not be all rainbows and unicorns, but should not be tragic. Angst and peril are ok as long as they don’t end in tragedy.
Authors of all genders and orientations are welcome to submit. Marginalized authors are strongly encouraged to submit, regardless of whether you are writing about your own cultural background.
If you want a somewhat less formal discussion of what sorts of stories really catch my eye, I wrote a blog about that.
Please feel free to publicize this call for submissions.
Submission Information
Do not send submissions before January 1, 2027 or after January 31, 2027. Submissions sent outside this window will not be considered (with allowance for time zones).
You should not re-submit a story that has previously been rejected, unless you have prior approval to do so. "Prior approval" could mean "when I rejected it previously, I said that I'd love to consider it again if you addressed X, Y, and Z." It can also mean, "Before you send it to me, you email me explaining when it was submitted previously and asking if I'd like to see it again." It especially helps if you've worked to make it even better than it was before, because the overall quality of the submissions goes up every year and you'll have stiff competition.
Simultaneous submission (i.e., having the story out under consideration at more than one market) is ok, but explain that in your cover letter. My turn-around time for acceptances is short enough that it's unlikely to be a problem for me.
Send submissions to hrjones@me.com
Submit your story as an rtf or doc(x) file attached to your email
The file name should be “[last name] - [story title, truncated if long]” (Don't include the brackets! They're there to indicate data fields.)
The subject line of your email should be “LHMP Submissions - [last name] - [story title]”
There is no need to provide a synopsis or biographical information in the cover letter, but it won't count against you if you do.
By submitting your story, you are verifying that the material is your own original work and that it has not been previously published in any form in a publicly accessible context. You are also verifying that you did not use any Large Language Model application (colloquially known as "AI") in any way in creating the story.
Submissions will be acknowledged within 2 days of receipt. If you haven’t received an acknowledgment within 5 days, please query.
Based on previous years, I will generally have the submissions read and responded to within the first week of February. If you haven't received a response by mid-February, please query as the email may have gone astray.
Formatting
Use your favorite standard manuscript format for short fiction with the following additions:
In addition to word count, please provide the date/era of your setting and the location/culture it is set in. (These can be in general terms, but it helps for putting the story in context, especially if it uses a very tight point of view where the time/place are not specifically mentioned in the story.) If you are including fantasy elements and think I might not be familiar with the historic background for those elements, a very brief note in the cover e-mail is a good idea.
If you don’t have a favorite manuscript format, here is a good basic format:
- Use courier or a similar monospaced serif font, 12-point size
- Lines should be double-spaced with paragraphs indented. (Use your word processor’s formatting for this, do not use tabs or manual carriage returns.)
- Do not justify the text, leave a ragged right margin.
- Margins should be at least 1-inch or equivalent all around
On the first page, provide the following information:
- Your name (legal name, the name I’ll be putting on the contract)
- email address
- (standard formats generally require a mailing address but I don’t need one at this point)
- word count (please use your word processor’s word count function, rounded to the nearest 100)
- date/era of story
- location/culture of story
Centered above the start of the story, include the title, and on the next line “by [name to appear in publication]”. This is where you may use a pen name, if you choose.
Please use actual italics rather than underlining for material meant to appear in italics.
Please indicate the end of your story with the word “end” centered below the final line.
As I will be reading stories electronically, there is no need to include page numbers or a header on each page. (If this is part of your standard format, you don’t need to remove them.)
Notes on Sensitivity
I strongly welcome settings that fall outside the "white English-speaking default". But stories should avoid exoticizing the cultural setting or relying on sterotypes or colonial cultural dynamics. What does that mean? A good guideline is to ask, "If someone whose roots are in this culture read the story, would they feel represented or objectified?"
What do I mean by "stories that involve cross-gender motifs should respect trans possibilities"? I mean that if the story includes an assigned-female character who is presenting publicly as male, I should have confidence that you, as the author, have thought about the complexities of gender and sexuality (both in history and for the expected audience). It should be implied that the character would identify as a woman if she had access to modern gender theory, and the way the character is treated should not erase the possibility of other people in the same setting identifying as trans men if they had access to modern gender theory. This is a bit of a long-winded explanation, but I simultaneously want to welcome stories that include cross-gender motifs and avoid stories that could make some of the potential audience feel erased or mislabeled.
A note on transfeminine characters: I am completely open to the inclusion of stories with transfeminine characters who identify as women-loving-women. This is a complicated topic for historic stories, though, as this is not a motif with much known historic grounding before the later 20th/21st century. If you're submitting this type of story, you may have to work harder than usual on making it work in the historic context.
Saturday, July 11, 2026 - 08:00
Attention has been drawn to the fact that -- in all of her voluminous journaling -- Anne Lister never identifies with existing terms for women-loving-women, such as "tribade" or "lesbian" (yes, the word existed during her era) and explicitly rejected identification with "sapphic." Some have seen this as a strong argument for viewing her primarily through a transgender lens. But this article points out a different angle: that Lister considered herself to be unique and unprecedented in terms of identity, not only her sexual identity, but her social identity in general. To put it bluntly, she appears to have had a severe case of "not like other girls." Honestly, she was a bit of a snob in various ways, and rejecting the idea that there might be other women "like her," even among the women she knew to have homosexual relationships, fits with that attitude.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Shannon, Laurie. 2023. “A Regular Oddity: Natural History and Anne Lister’s Queer Theory of Tradition” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
Part I: ‘Nature was in an odd freak when she made me’: Lister, Sexuality, Gender and Natural History; 2. A Regular Oddity: Natural History and Anne Lister’s Queer Theory of Tradition by Laurie Shannon
This article traces one aspect of how Lister understood her gender and sexuality, that is, as a “natural” variation that was to some extent unique to her. Rather than projecting modern identity concepts back in time onto Lister, Shannon locates this understanding within the past and present philosophies of Lister’s own time with respect to the concept of “nature.”
[Note: I’m going to digress for a moment on a point that Shannon doesn’t address in particular. Discourse around homosexuality in classical philosophy up through the Renaissance included a theme that it was “against nature” (contra naturem), not so much in the sense of flouting the dictates of a personified Nature – although there was an aspect of that – but in the sense that it was considered part of the inherent nature of all creatures to desire at the opposite sex, and that behavior in contradiction to this went against what was expected to be people’s inherent “nature.” This is relevant to Shannon’s argument, because Lister is introducing a more multivalent concept of the range of inherent natures possible for human beings. That there is no single universal “nature” with regard to gender/sexuality, and thus people can diverge from the normative state without going against their individual “nature.” It’s very much a “born this way” argument but – as we’ll see – does not embrace homosexuality as a “type of person” collectively, but more along the lines of the “individual taste” concept that pops up regularly from classical times onward.]
When Lister writes about how she does and does not fit into society’s expectations along a number of axes, she continually returns to two themes: claiming the identity of “oddity” and asserting that this is her “nature,” connecting the concept with writings about natural history. This contrasts significantly with modern historians’ characterizations of her identity as transgression or non-conformity
The standard approach to natural history – entwined thoroughly with both classical writings and Christian philosophy – saw the world in terms of “creation” and a “creator.” The state of existence was a deliberate and conscious creation of an omnipotent deity, and the characteristics of creatures (= “create”-ures) were neither random nor accidental. [Note: As noted previously, within this understanding, behaviors that were considered “against nature” were thus considered a deliberate rejection of God’s intent, making them a moral failing.]
In developing an understanding of her own “nature,” Lister looked to texts that enumerated and celebrated the diversity of creation and the assignment of different “natures” to different creatures -- “each according to their kind.” Where Lister diverged from more traditional thought was in envisioning the existence of fractally individual “natures” to which one must be true. A person might be “odd” with respect to expectations while still acting according to their own nature.
Lister frequently describes herself -- in her journals or to others – as “odd” or having “my oddity” in the context not only of her sexual desires, but her clothing preferences and behavioral habits. But her oddity, from her point of view, was not a shared characteristic with other women who loved women, but a feature unique to herself. This puts a slightly different spin on Lister’s refusal to identify with terms she encountered in classical literature, such as tribade or fricatrix, or with “sapphist” which she explicitly rejects as an identity. After discussing their shared desire for women with Miss Pickford (an intellectual neighbor in a romantic partnership with another woman) Lister protests in her journal, “she supposed to meet like herself – how she is mistaken.” It seems to have been important to Lister to view herself as unique and special. She quotes one of her literary heroes, Rousseau, in her journal: “I am not made like any of those I’ve seen; I dare to believe not made like any of those who exist.”
Despite Lister’s fixation on uniqueness, “oddity” along with “singular” and “unaccountable” was a regular codeword associated with lesbianism or gender nonconformity in the 18th and 19th centuries (per Caroline Gonda).
The article now shifts to considering how Lister’s “oddity” is depicted in modern media and deployed symbolically by her modern fandom. The next section of the article explores other examples from the 17th to 19th centuries of interpreting “nature” broad-mindedly, or of discussions of divine creation that could be used to support such an interpretation.
Lister’s concept of her “oddity” encompassed more than sexuality. She describes how others responded to “my figure, manner of walking and my voice” commenting that people might notice such things but found them “agreeable.” [Note: We can’t entirely trust Lister’s perceptions here, but at least people told her to her face that they liked her “oddity.”]
Lister’s embracing of her own homosexuality as natural and positive did not extend to all possible flavors of queerness (by modern definition). She disapproves of being “connected to both sexes” (i.e., bisexuality), approving only of a consistent and exclusive desire for a particular sex. She approves only of same-sex desire that is experienced spontaneously and not “done from books.” [Note: I’m trying to envision what she means here, but it might be a reference to pornography.] She distains sex acts that involve anything not “natural.” Her disparagement of “saffic regard” is due to defining this as involving the use of a dildo. Her love is natural and constant; anything involving artifice or inconstancy falls outside her definition of “nature.” Nature might have “been in an odd freak” when creating Lister, but her desires were entirely due to that natural creation, and therefore were beyond judgment. She further notes – when researching anatomical theories of sexuality – that with respect to her own nature, “no exterior formation accounted for it, it was all the effects of the mind.” That is, for herself, she discards the popular idea of an anatomical cause for lesbian desire.
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Friday, July 10, 2026 - 16:00
My brief break is over and I have another series of Anne Lister posts coming before moving on to other topics. This is a collection of articles revolving around archival material and/or the relationship between history and popular culture.
These write-ups were done using a combination of hand-written notes and speech-to-text software, due to my broken arm. Although I've tried to do careful proofreading, the speech-to-text generated some systematic errors (like "Lester" for "Lister") and I hope I'll be forgiven if any slip through. I'm back to typing with both hands now (which provides part of my physical therapy exercises) but it's still a bit slow and painful, so it's useful to have a dozen posts all ready to go except for these introductory notes.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Donoghue, Emma, Chris Roulston, & Carolina Gonda. 2023. “Foreward”, “Introduction”, & “Caroline Gonda in Conversation with Helena Whitbread” in Decoding Anne Lister: From the Archives to ‘Gentleman Jack’, Chris Roulston & Caroline Gonda, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009280723
Publication summary:
At the time of writing, the ebook of this publication was available through Open Access at not cost at the following url: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/decoding-anne-lister/E6CFCB182F71891949C4709148422131
Front Matter (Foreword, Introduction, Conversation with Helena Whitbread)
Foreword by Emma Donoghue
This is the collection of papers based on material from the Lister archives, approached from a variety of angles. [Note: Not all of the material touches on her sexuality, but I will blog everything, though some coverage may be briefer than others.]
The front matter includes a forward by Emma Donoghue, an introduction by Chris Roulston (one of the editors), and a conversation between Carolyn Gonda (the other editor) and Helena Whitbread.
Donoghue gives a brief background to Lister and an exploration of some of the facets of her life that are fascinating to modern researchers and the general public. She notes some of the curious paradoxes of Lister’s life and personality.
Introduction by Chris Roulston
Roulston notes the sheer magnitude of Lister’s diaries, and provides a capsule history of them. There has been a tendency to see the diaries as a unique artifact. The lack of comparable material from the era creates problems of interpretation, as it is difficult to determine how representative they are. The papers in this volume explore both how the Lister archives shed light on 19th century history, and how 19th-century history created the conditions in which Lister existed.
The unique nature of the archive lies behind how Anne Lister has become both a scholarly and popular icon. Her life participates not only in how we see the past, but how we engage with commemorating and presenting that past. There is a constant conversation in this volume between past and present.
Lister challenged norms of gender and sexuality, but also was strongly rooted in conservative social and political realities. Due to the private nature of the diaries and the use of encryption to obscure certain content, Lister’s diaries offer an unrivaled glimpse into one woman’s thoughts on her own identity and sexuality, how those factors affected her life, and how she strove to manage those forces.
One key factor in the 19th century (and neighboring eras) was the separation of female and male social spaces, and the general acceptance and approval of romantic and intimate friendships between women. Within this dynamic, for a friendship to shift into eroticism could be trivial.
Although Lister is the lens through which we are given a glimpse into these queer relationships, she is scarcely the only woman whose same sex eroticism is detailed in the diaries. Her lovers (and there were many of them) and certain acquaintances participated in homoerotic relations without necessarily sharing Lister’s gender transgression. At the same time, Lister was not unique in the 19th century in combining homoeroticism with gender nonconformity. (This part of the introduction is also serving as a survey of key prior scholarship relevant to Lister studies.)
Lister's gender identity existed in a liminal space. She considered her behavior “gentlemanly” and on a few occasions fantasized about having a penis or passing as a man. But when one lover suggested that she should have been born a boy, Lister protested that being male would have excluded her from free access to “ladies’ society.”
While some of her lovers enjoyed – or at least accepted – sexual relationships with men, Lister is always adamant about rejecting the idea of heterosexual marriage and feeling only revulsion for male attention. Yet the idea of marriage was a strong attraction and Lister’s steady goal was to find a female marriage partner and go through conventional ritual and symbolic forms associated with it.
Although Lister’s gender and sexuality are a continual theme in her diaries, the material encompasses multiple other topics, reflected in the five sections of this volume. The introduction then summarizes the contents.
1. Caroline Gonda in Conversation with Helena Whitbread
This interview allows Whitbread to provide a personal history of how she encountered and worked with the Lister archives.
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