The Pennine Mountains in the north of England are home to the famous literary works "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre". Today, a real person at the foot of the mountain range is popular on both sides of the Atlantic because of the BBC-produced TV series "Gentleman Jack".
However, the protagonist of the TV series is not a gentleman, but a lady, Anne Lister. Born in 1791, she died in 1840, leaving behind her "widow" Ann Walker.
Anne Liszt, known as the first lesbian in modern times. More than 200 years ago, when gay men were still legally convicted and lesbians were little known, she wrote in her diary: "I only love women. ”
Sex diary
What made Anne Lister so famous was her diary. She began to write a diary from her adolescence until her death at the age of 49, leaving a total of 26 diaries, 14 travelogues, a total of more than 5 million words, and recorded her daily life, emotional experiences and travels in great detail.
However, these are not ordinary diaries, and one-sixth of them are written in passwords. The diary has experienced more than 100 years from its discovery to its publication.
In 1890, 50 years after the death of Anne Lister, a distant descendant, John Lister, inherited her ancestral home, Shibden Hall, where she found the diaries.
John Lister cracks the code with the help of her friend Arthur Burrell, finally reads Anne Lister's secret diary and discovers her sexual relationship with numerous female friends that goes beyond friendship.
Porrell had advised John to burn these diaries with astonishing secrets so as not to discredit the entire family, but John continued to hide them behind the heavy plank walls of the old mansion, leaving a chance for posterity to peek into the secrets.
After the death of John Liszt in 1933, the Hibiton House was donated to the society as a museum, and the diaries were transferred to the public library collection.
The diary is public
When the writer Helena Whitbread first saw the diaries in the Halifax Public Library in West Yorkshire in 1982, she had no idea that behind the code was the secret of life as different as the diary's owner, Liszt.
Liszt probably never imagined that the same-sex marriage she was trying to pursue would one day be legally recognized.
On December 12, 1817, Anne Liszt wrote in her diary: "I took off my coat and warm underwear and went to bed, and had a long kiss. She showed all the enthusiasm she should have. Less than 7 minutes later, the latch was released and we were all fine again. ”
Writer Vitbred discovered after cracking the code that Liszt's "kissing" in his diary was actually "sex."
In 1988, Wittbed published her first decoded Liszt diary, I Know My Own Heart, which caused a sensation in the world.
Prior to this, there was a lack of definitive evidence of sexual relations between women in historical records, and the lesbian details in Anne Lister's diary were real that many people never thought they were. Some of the details in her diary were so explicit that some people felt that they were fake plots.
Problem girl
Born and raised in West Yorkshire, in the Pennines Mountains of northern England, an abundance of coal, iron ore and wool, Anne Liszt was the epicenter of Britain's first industrial revolution. Liszt's father was a professional soldier with a low official position.
Anne Liszt grew up maverick and untamed, and was by no means a well-behaved girl in the eyes of her parents. She had four brothers and a sister, and was said to have been sent by her mother to boarding school in York because she was too difficult to discipline.
But the boarding school's strict school rules didn't change her personality either, and at the age of 15, she was forbidden to live in a student dormitory and was sent to live alone in the attic. It was in this loneliness that the diary began to become the object of her talk.
It was an era of inequality between men and women, and women in England had no inheritance rights to property and were not qualified to go to university, but the studious Anne Lister had learned Greek, algebra, French, mathematics, astronomy, and geology in school. She also made up her mind that as long as men could learn, she would learn.
Same-sex lovers
It was in this attic that she began her first same-sex relationship. The school assigned another undisciplined girl, Eliza Lane, to live with her in the attic. They began gay love right under the teacher's nose.
Anne Liszt was passionate when she was in love, but she was never carried away by love, and she never lost her mind on the other side of planning and calmness. She dreams of a life of enough family wealth to live a free life. Liszt knew that only money could allow her to enjoy a life of high society without having to marry.
She soon loses interest in Eliza and falls in love with Marianne, the daughter of a doctor in York. This empathy dealt a heavy blow to Eliza, who never recovered and was healed to death in a mental hospital.
Marianne, for 20 years, has maintained a disconnected relationship with Liszt, and even after Marianne's marriage, the two still often see each other and share a bed.
But Marianne's marriage broke Anne Liszt's heart. She decided to go to the free Continent of Europe to pursue her dreams in life, hoping to meet a like-minded "lesbian" with a lot of money.
In 1824, she met Maria Barlow, a widow from Guernsey, in Paris, France. Although Mrs. Barlow was not Liszt's ideal lady with a noble title, Liszt was still devoted to her "beauty and tenderness".
Liszt has more details about this relationship and the sex between the two than he wrote in his diary before. However, Liszt soon grew tired of Mrs. Barlow's sentimentality. So, she left the weeping lover without turning back and returned to her hometown in York, England.
This 8-month trip to Paris has opened her eyes and made her believe that she belongs to a wider sky and should enjoy a better life.
After her uncle's death, she became the heir to the ancestral house, Hibiton House. Her uncle left her with other properties and land, and these new incomes gave her more financial freedom, to "see the world", and to have more access to the upper class.
At this time, she became acquainted with Vere Hobart, the sister of the Earl of Buckinghamshire V, and fell in love with the young and fashionable aristocratic lady at first sight.
The two spent five months together in hastings, a seaside town in southern England, during which Time Anne Lister began to think that she had finally found her dream lover. Veil's looks, family lineage, and wealth were all things That Anne Lister had longed for for years. However, Ville did not choose her, but instead married an officer. Saddened by each other's desperation and embarrassed by her own sentimentality, Anne Lister cried for months.
And, she ran out of money. She wrote in her diary: "My plan to enter the upper class failed. ”
Going home is the best way to heal. So Anne Lister returned home and for the first time in many years settled down in her ancestral home. She told her diary: "I can continue to live happily." 41 years old, and a searching heart. What makes this heart stop? ”
Such an open-minded, quick-headed, well-educated woman was rare in Britain 200 years ago. It was with her own wisdom and shrewd business acumen that Anne Lister, after inheriting the family estate, became a powerful landowner in the Halifax area and provided a good economic basis for her to choose the free and comfortable life she aspired to.
Life partner
At this time, Anne Lister's life partner, Ann Walker, reappeared in her life trajectory. Walker, 29, is an introverted woman who is the heiress of a large mansion nearby.
Like her previous lovers, Walker's possessions were a big attraction to Anne Liszt. She wrote in her diary: "She didn't know what I was thinking in her dreams. She has money, which may make up for the lack of social status. We've gotten along so far. ”
"I really felt in love with her in the chalet. Perhaps through the vicissitudes, she will give me happiness and joy more than the previous people who have moved my heart. ”
Two months after the reunion, Anne Lister expressed her desire to live together to Ann Walker. At this time, Walker was very confused about this same-sex relationship, so he asked her to give her half a year to consider it.
Half a year later, Walker is still undecided. Anne Lister also began to have doubts about the relationship, so she left Halifax and went to Paris.
A few months later, when she returned, Walker had pushed aside a family affair, showing that she was determined to live with Anne Walker.
The two women each revised their wills and exchanged rings. On the Sunday of Easter in 1834, they both went to holy trinity Church in York to receive communion. In their view, this "marriage" was stamped and registered.
After marriage, the two spent 3 months of honeymoons in France and Switzerland. After returning to Halifax, Ann Walker moved much of her furniture to the Hibiton Mansion and started a new life.
The two women's determination to live together became not only an after-dinner conversation in Yorkshire, but also a public ridicule and a malicious anonymous letter. A leeds tabloid newspaper carried an advertisement satirizing them, announcing that Colonel Liszt of "Hibiton" and Miss Ann Walker were "married"; they also received a letter to "Colonel Liszt" congratulating the newlyweds on their association.
Anne Liszt wrote in her diary: "These may be deliberately angry with me, and if you really want to make me angry, it must be in vain." ”
Like all newlywed families, two people living together inevitably bump into each other and adapt to each other. Anne Liszt was keenly interested in local politics, and Walker felt heartbroken that he had been left out in the cold.
Liszt wanted to renovate his ancestral home, and most of the money came from Walker. Lister wrote in his diary that Walker's spending of the money was becoming increasingly "hysterical."
In the years after their marriage, the two traveled to many countries, climbing mountains in France and wintering in Russia.
maverick
In the summer of 1840, they came to Kutaisi, the caucasus mountains' third-largest city in Georgia. On August 11, 1840, Liszt wrote his last diary. Six weeks later, Liszt died of a high fever caused by a bug bite.
The weak Walker took Liszt's coffin and traveled more than 7,000 kilometers for 8 months, and finally brought the bones of his lover back to his hometown in Britain. According to Liszt's will, Walker could continue to live in Hibiton, but her relatives thought she was mentally ill and arranged for doctors and lawyers. The police broke through the door.
At that point, Walker locked himself in a dimly lit room in Hibiton, next to which documents were piled up and a pistol with loaded bullets. She was sent to a mental hospital in York, where Liszt's first teenage lover, Eliza, recovered.
Today, outside the Holy Trinity Church in York, where Liszt and Volcker "pledged the sea of mountains and seas", a rainbow nameplate is hung to commemorate their "wedding" in 1834.
With the popularity of the BBC drama "Gentleman Jack", more and more people have learned more about Anne Liszt's life and experience. The number of visitors to Hibiton from the UK and the US also soared by 700%.
Anne Lister 200 years ago, physically strong, energetic, maverick, self-contained, eccentric, quick thinking, erudite, adventurous and independent, fierce, dare to hate and dare to love, she is certainly not a woman who is loved by everyone.
Sally Wainwright, writer, producer and director of "Gentleman Jack," had this to say about Anne Lister:
"She has a very healthy sense of her own worth. She can give us some inspiration. ”