'I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs.' [perhaps in cursive text, like front, as it's a quote from the diary - in which case, remove quote marks]Anne Lister defied the role of early nineteenth-century womanhood: she was bold, fiercely independent, a landowner, industrialist, traveller and lived openly as a lesbian. She kept intimate diaries of her life and loves, much of which were written in code.'Anne Lister's diaries are an indispensable read for anyone interested in the history of gender, sexuality, and the intimate lives of women' SARAH WATERS'[Anne Lister's] sense of self, and self-awareness, is what makes her modern to us. She was a woman exercising conscious choice. She controlled her cash and her body. At a time when women had to marry, or be looked after by a male relative, and when all their property on marriage passed to their husband, Anne Lister not only dodged the traps of being female, she set up a liaison with another woman that enhanced her own wealth and left both of them free to live as they wished . . . The diaries gave me courage' JEANETTE WINTERSON'By resurrecting these diaries and editing them with such loving attention and intelligence, Helena Whitbread has earned the gratitude of a whole generation' EMMA DONOGHUE