As Good as a Marriage: The Anne Lister Diaries 1836–38

by Jill Liddington

The BBC and HBO series Gentleman Jack brought Anne Lister to international attention, awakening tremendous interest in her diaries, which run to nearly five million words and are partly written in her secret code. They record in intimate detail Anne’s intellectual energy and her challenges to so many of society’s expectations of women at the time.

In As Good as a Marriage, the sequel to Female Fortune, Jill Liddington’s edited transcriptions of the diaries show us Anne from 1836–38. She guides the reader through life at Shibden Hall after Anne’s unconventional ‘marriage’ to wealthy local heiress Ann Walker. The book explores the daily lives of these two women, from convivial evenings together to her ruthless pursuit of her own business and landowning ambitions.

Yet the diaries’ coded passages also record tensions and quarrels, with Ann Walker often in tears. Was their relationship really as fragile as Anne’s coded writing suggests? This question is at the heart of As Good as a Marriage.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

384 pages, Hardcover

Published March 7, 2023

About the author

Jill 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)

Reviews

[Sandra de Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are the last diaries of Anne Lister (1836-38) as delivered by Jill Liddington with maps, genealogical information, notes, Introduction, Note, the diaries themselves with occasional additional explanation, Epilogue, Afterword, and Index. I read them all. I savored them all. As one who has now read all the diaries of Anne Lister, I was disappointed to learn of Anne's own disappointments in her marriage to Ann Walker. But in the end, it was indeed as good as a marriage, better in fact than could have been expected of a straight marriage in that era. I am and will forever be a fan of Anne Lister. We wouldn't have been friends in real life, because I was below her station. But I would have admired her intellect, her business acumen, her ability to have a life in spite of all the obstacles and prejudices of her time.