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Presenting The Past: Anne Lister Of Halifax, 1791–1840
Pennine Pens was delighted to publish Presenting the Past in 1994. With a second edition in 2010, this path-breaking book has remained in print for over twenty years. So here for the very first time is a new eBook edition - making this Anne Lister classic easily available now for everyone throughout the world with an iPad, Kindle or other eBook reader.
Anne Lister - scholar, lesbian, diarist - owned and ran her Shibden Hall estate in Halifax. Her diaries run to four million words, much of it written in Anne’s own secret code. Presenting the Past told the dramatic story of how the Anne Lister diaries and letters survived after her death in 1840.
Here Jill Liddington recounts for the very first time how the code was deciphered in the 1890s - by John Lister who inherited Shibden. Once cracked, these coded passages revealed Anne Lister’s daring lesbian affairs. Since then, successive generations of editors and historians have discovered their own version of the extraordinary Anne Lister story.
Plunging the reader into the Archives in Halifax where the Shibden Hall papers are stored, Presenting the Past offered the very first critical reappraisal of these dramatically different images of Anne Lister - and asks how and why earlier editors selected their version?
Another book from Pennine Pens, also about Anne Lister is Nature’s Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire. This book has inspiired several episodes of Sally Wainwright’s new TV drama series produced by Lookout Point (with BBC & HBO). This, the first full-length drama about Anne Lister, will be broadcast on BBC1 in 2019. Filming for the series starts at Shibden in May 2018.
Anne Lister - scholar, lesbian, diarist - owned and ran her Shibden Hall estate in Halifax. Her diaries run to four million words, much of it written in Anne’s own secret code. Presenting the Past told the dramatic story of how the Anne Lister diaries and letters survived after her death in 1840.
Here Jill Liddington recounts for the very first time how the code was deciphered in the 1890s - by John Lister who inherited Shibden. Once cracked, these coded passages revealed Anne Lister’s daring lesbian affairs. Since then, successive generations of editors and historians have discovered their own version of the extraordinary Anne Lister story.
Plunging the reader into the Archives in Halifax where the Shibden Hall papers are stored, Presenting the Past offered the very first critical reappraisal of these dramatically different images of Anne Lister - and asks how and why earlier editors selected their version?
Another book from Pennine Pens, also about Anne Lister is Nature’s Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire. This book has inspiired several episodes of Sally Wainwright’s new TV drama series produced by Lookout Point (with BBC & HBO). This, the first full-length drama about Anne Lister, will be broadcast on BBC1 in 2019. Filming for the series starts at Shibden in May 2018.
76 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Jill Liddington
10 books23 followersJill Liddington (born in Manchester, 1946) is a British writer and academic who specialises in women's history.
She joined the Department of External Studies at Leeds University in 1982 and became a Reader in Gender History, School of Continuing Education, until her transfer to CIGS, where she is currently Honorary Research Fellow.
Liddington stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Sowerby Bridge ward in the Calderdale Council election, 2004 - largely to prevent more BNP councillors being elected.
(from Wikipedia)
She joined the Department of External Studies at Leeds University in 1982 and became a Reader in Gender History, School of Continuing Education, until her transfer to CIGS, where she is currently Honorary Research Fellow.
Liddington stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Sowerby Bridge ward in the Calderdale Council election, 2004 - largely to prevent more BNP councillors being elected.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 19, 2023
An exploration on how past scholars have dealt with the material from Anne Lister. If that's detail you're interested in, 5 stars. Personally, I could have given this a miss. I didn't find it as insightful or charming as reading large extracts from the journals themselves available in other published work
July 3, 2019
Eager to read more of the decoded diaries!
January 19, 2021
Very insightul. Well researched.
March 3, 2017
This book contains two short scholarly works talking about the value and historiography of the Anne Lister diaries and letters. The writing is clear and on point, managing to reiterate a number of themes without appearing repetitive, and was accessible for a non-historian with a vague interest in Anne Lister.
A slim volume (76 pages, including index and footnotes), it was not a quick read, in part because there is a lot of detail covered, including summaries of previous readings of the diaries and letters. What it made me wish to do was read more about this fascinating character, but alas, I don't currently have access to the other published works on her.
A slim volume (76 pages, including index and footnotes), it was not a quick read, in part because there is a lot of detail covered, including summaries of previous readings of the diaries and letters. What it made me wish to do was read more about this fascinating character, but alas, I don't currently have access to the other published works on her.
December 23, 2013
This little book needs to be circulated much better. Eloquently raises the Anne Lister issue that I'd always thought of, but could never quite articulate - that every generation effectively discovers their own version of Anne Lister, and with the way the editions we currently have are slanted, it's impossible to form a cohesive image of the woman. Also contains wonderful bits on Anne's younger life (even as a young girl, she was quite the bluestocking-ed firecracker) and a young portrait I'd never seen before - which bears very little resemblance to any of her other portraits, incidentally. I wish she'd gotten hold of a better artist :(
November 19, 2015
I enjoyed reading about Miss Anne Lister and hope to read more about her.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews