Secret Diaries Past & Present

Secret Diaries Past & Present book cover

I have just published a new book—a Q&A collaboration with Helena Whitbread, author of The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. Anne was a wealthy lesbian diarist who lived two centuries before our time.

Helena and I investigate Anne’s and my obsession with keeping detailed encoded diaries about every aspects of our lives, including our lesbian sexuality. The book is illustrated with photographs of Anne’s and my diaries. Section headings include:

  • Early sexuality
  • Keeping a diary in the age of technology
  • The mentality behind keeping a detailed diary
  • Encoding
  • Similarities and differences in Anne’s and Natasha’s diaries
  • Obsessiveness
  • How Anne managed her lesbian sexuality
  • Adult sexuality
  • Christianity
  • Helena’s reaction to Anne’s and Natasha’s diaries

PAPERBACK (£4.99)
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1539873366
US: www.amazon.com/dp/1539873366

EBOOK (£1.99)
UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N78B99Q
US: www.amazon.com/dp/B01N78B99Q

“When I first heard that you have been keeping a diary from a young age and, furthermore, that you had used an esoteric code, I was immediately interested. I was further intrigued by the fact that you are a lesbian and wrote about your sexual life. It seemed to me that a modern parallel could be drawn with Anne Lister, the early 19th century lesbian diarist who had written a great deal about her lesbian sexuality in her journals, couched in a secret code of her own devising. I thought it would be interesting to see how far this hypothesis could be taken and wondered if you would be willing to join me in an exploration of the similarities and differences, as diarists and as lesbians, between yourself and a woman who lived some two hundred years before your time.”

Helena Whitbread

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Secret Diaries Past & Present

In the form of a Q&A, this book compares and contrasts the diaries and lives of 19th century lesbian diarist Anne Lister and modern-day lesbian diarist Natasha Holme.

Like Anne Lister two hundred years before her, Natasha wrote her diaries in a secret code, based on the Greek alphabet. The book contains photographs of Anne’s and Natasha’s encoded diaries. It is divided into sections such as …

  • Early sexuality
  • The mentality behind keeping a detailed diary
  • Encoding
  • Obsessiveness
  • Christianity

“When I first heard that you have been keeping a diary from a young age and, furthermore, that you had used an esoteric code, I was immediately interested. I was further intrigued by the fact that you are a lesbian and wrote about your sexual life. It seemed to me that a modern parallel could be drawn with Anne Lister, the early 19th century lesbian diarist who had written a great deal about her lesbian sexuality in her journals, couched in a secret code of her own devising. I thought it would be interesting to see how far this hypothesis could be taken and wondered if you would be willing to join me in an exploration of the similarities and differences, as diarists and as lesbians, between yourself and a woman who lived some two hundred years before your time.”

Helena Whitbread

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>