Charity and Sylvia

by Tillie Walden

An openly Lesbian couple survives and thrives in 19th century Vermont–a true story, as told by Tillie Walden

The month is February in the year 1807. The place is Weybridge, Vermont: small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. Sylvia Drake is exhausted. As an unwed woman with few prospects, she is residing with and caring for her sister’s rambunctious family. Today the house is abuzz awaiting a guest—Charity Bryant. A friend of the family, she is most known for her elegant letters, with their swoopy and evocative penmanship and carefully chosen prose. But Charity’s visit is a guise, she is coming to Vermont to start over after heartbreak and rumours—so many rumours—that have grown too loud back in Massachusetts.

Being openly gay in 19th century New England is not an easy row to hoe. But Charity can only be herself, and she immediately catches—and holds—the eye of none other than Sylvia Drake. From this point on, for 44 years, the two would be inseparable, building a life together despite all odds and living as a lesbian couple in small town Vermont.

The true, exceptional story of these remarkable women is brought to life with humor and passion by the unparalleled and award-winning Tillie Walden (Spinning, On A Sunbeam). We see America grow alongside these women over a period that brings about the railroad, many novels, 14 Presidents, riots, rebellion, plagues, and poetry. Based on extensive archives of their writing, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking biography that is also the story of 19th century America.

Genres: Graphic Novels, LGBT, Comics, History, Nonfiction, Queer, Lesbian

264 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 16, 2026

About the author

Tillie Walden is an American cartoonist and illustrator.
Born in 1996 in San Diego, California, Walden graduated from the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, where she is currently a professor.
Walden started publishing short comics when she was just a teenager. Her first long-form graphic novel The End of Summer was published by the British publisher Avery Hill in 2015. Her second book I Love This Part came out only a few months later, winning the 2016 Ignatz Award for promising new talent. Later Walden received the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for her memoir Spinning (2017). Among her other works are A City Inside (2016), On a Sunbeam (2018), Are You Listening? (2020), Alone in Space (2021) and the series Clementine.

Reviews

[Cherie • bookshelvesandtealeaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Drawn and Quarterly for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

I really loved the story of Charity and Sylvia together, getting to know each other, falling in love and living the life they wanted, all the way to their deaths. Everything else included with their families, church, the town etc bored me a lot.

I also felt it was very choppy. I understand this is likely intentional, given it’s largely based on journal entries and letters, but I felt we didn’t spent enough time in any one moment to really feel for much. It was the moments we did spend time with, especially Charity’s death, that bumped this up another half star for me.

I found the panels too busy with far too much text and dialogue. Walden’s art style is great, though, I just wish I could have seen more of it.

[Alex Sarll]

The true story, mostly, of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, who lived almost openly as a couple, largely without bother, in the small town of Weybridge in early 19th century Vermont. There has been an understandable upsurge in queer history across recent decades, the urge to demonstrate that homosexuality is not some new (and implicitly terrible) development sometimes tipping into clumsy, time-blind stuff that back-projects modern attitudes wholesale into the past. But, thank goodness, while Tillie Walden's previous work has not tended to the historical, her usual deftness of touch has carried across; this is not moderns in fancy dress, it's the people of another age, whose concerns and passions are sometimes ours, other times echo them, but elsewhere are entirely alien, as in the deep faith which pervades everything but takes many subtly different forms, and sometimes acts as a faultline between the two women as they each wrestle in their own way with whether they are truly the sinners the Bible suggests. True, I did spot one small anachronism (one might very well take receipt of a book by Jane Austen in the Year Without A Summer, but it wouldn't yet have had her name on it), but the really jarring element here was the format, a rigid 12-panel grid where, except in occasional interstitial pages, even when a single image carries across multiple panels it will still be cut up by the borders. This makes perfect artistic sense: it emphasises the physical and moral constraints of the time, the lives cut short by disease and disaster or shrunken by limited possibilities. It also means the story can sometimes be told in montage, or by the accumulation of small and telling details. But it does sacrifice the almost musical sweep and swoop of big images which for me has often been a key part of my enjoyment in a Tillie Walden comic. Still, sad as that is, the slower pace it compels suits a love story told across decades, something which often hits me hard, not least because we all know how they end even in the best case scenario. But even before the encroaching end, there's so much to tug the heartstrings here, from the paired list of the things the couple each love and can't stand about each other, to a simple chapter title like "It Is Wish'd She Would Live Again, But Years Pass And She Does Not". Not that it's all heartbreaking; there's sly wit, irritating relatives, all the stuff of human life, filtered through the particularities of the time (so that, for instance, Charity and Sylvia are sometimes saddened they can't have children – but watching the massive broods of others, the frequent infant and maternal mortality, the jeopardy of so many mouths to feed, they know that in many ways they've also had a lucky escape). Vast and moving and true, small panels or not.

(Edelweiss ARC)

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Tillie Walden banger.

This one is unexpected for me because I have an aversion to both biographies and period pieces, and Walden's biggest draw for me are her fiery colors. I was so ready to hate this.

But she did it again !

We follow Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake's relationship, as they navigate same-sex relations at the dawn of the United States.

The book is broken up in one or two page vignettes, much like the diary entries it is based on. It's a perfect balance between beautiful quiet moments, heavy hitting emotional ones, and the couples day to day lives. It lacks some of the fervour of her earlier work, but absolutely makes up for it in heart. And while Walden's gorgeous colors are definitely missed, she still managed to sneak in some really stunning pages.

Definitely not one to be missed this summer !

[Haruka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read!!! The storyline is interesting to read. The story about queer couple during the old days. There so much parts in the story about the towns, the people tho there some parts i feel a bit draggy. It was quite a slow read for me since the storyline was flat. I love the art style. Very pretty!! The way the story was told in 12 boxes per pages. It was refreshing reading it that way!! Great read!!
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Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for giving me the chance to read this book in advance~

[Cora · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, quiet portrait of a life together.

[dobbs the dog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received from Edelweiss, thanks!

This was a great graphic novel! I had never heard about Charity and Sylvia and this was just such a lovingly created story.

I love how Charity and Sylvia just decided to do what they wanted, at a time when that would have been very difficult to do. It was the early 1800s in New England, folks were overly religious, but they somehow accepted Charity and Sylvia being "good friends". Everything about this story was great, the fact that they chose each other, that they were successful business owners, that they traveled unchaperoned.

Now that I know this story I desperately want to go to the Henry Sheldon Museum in Vermont where the artifacts of their life are kept. If I ever have the inclination to travel to the US ever again...

Excellent read about two incredible women!