Anne Lister's travel diaries

June 23, 2019 1:40 AM

Did Anne Lister (aka Gentleman Jack) write any travel diaries? If not, what can I read instead?

Recently read the diaries of Anne Lister (aka Gentleman Jack) and found the parts where she was travelling pretty fascinating. Unfortunately, these are only a few pages long: there's a part where she spends a few days in France, but it seems like she didn't keep a diary while on her travels in Europe (or at least these don't appear in the book I have).

Did she write any travel diaries? If not, what else could I read that would be similar?

What I find interesting are the small observations on daily life at the time. Would be good to find something from the same period (early 1800s) and focusing on Europe. The LGBT slant would be a bonus but I would be surprised to find anything similar in that period.

Feel free to suggest things that don't meet that criteria, though!

posted by iamsuper to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Best answer: Looking through Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers in search of women writing about Europe from 1800 to 1850, I see these options at the Internet Archive, organized roughly by dates of travel:

Anna Jameson (1833 but originally 1826), Diary of an Ennuyée (note: semi-fictionalized)
Elizabeth Mary Grosvenor, Marchioness of Westminster (1879), Diary of a tour in Sweden, Norway, and Russia in 1827
Frances Trollope (1835), Belgium and western Germany in 1833, v. 1 and v. 2
Frances Trollope (1836), Paris and the Parisians in 1835, v. 1 and v. 2
Mary Boddington (1837), Sketches in the Pyrenees, v. 1 and v. 2
Frances Trollope (1838), Vienna and the Austrians, v. 1 and v. 2
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington (1839), The Idler in Italy, v. 1 and v. 2
Louisa Stuart Costello (1840), A summer amongst the Bocages and the vines, v. 1 and v. 2
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington (1841), The Idler in France, v. 1 and v. 2
Elizabeth Mary Grosvenor, Marchioness of Westminster (1842), Narrative of a yacht voyage in the Mediterranean, during 1840-41
Augusta Macgregor Holmes (1842), A Ride on Horseback to Florence Through France and Switzerland, v. 1 and v .2
Louisa Stuart Costello (1842), A pilgrimage to Auvergne, from Picardy to Le Velay, v. 1 and v. 2
Frances Anne Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry (1844), Narrative of a visit to the courts of Vienna, Constantinople, Athens, Naples, &c.
Ida Pfeiffer (1852, but the trip begins in 1845), Journey to Iceland, and travels in Sweden and Norway
Louisa Stuart Costello (1846), A Tour to and from Venice, by the Vaudois and the Tyrol
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:49 AM on June 23, 2019 [8 favorites]

Anne Lister’s travel diaries are extensive — 27 volumes, ~4-5 million words. What you read was surely just a minute sample of what she wrote. I understand that she did a fair bit of traveling and kept her diary throughout. There are at least two collections of diary excerpts for sale. Which one did you read? Maybe another mefite can comment on the amount of travel content in other publications of her diaries.
posted by reren at 7:14 AM on June 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Anne Lister's diaries have been digitised in full, along with various letters and business correspondence. You can search them by date at the West Yorkshire Archive's online service.

Catablogue has a guide to the years covered by each volume, and tips for searching, including the cypher to translate encoded bits if you come across them.
posted by freya_lamb at 11:32 AM on June 23, 2019 [1 favorite]