‘I only love the fairer sex.’
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The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
Edited by Helena Whitbread
Virago, UK. 422 pages, $14.95

A SECRET DIARY—seduction, romance, lesbian love, sexual passages written in code—are all packaged in this one volume that chronicles the life of a most extraordinary 19th-century English gentlewoman, Anne Lister (1791–1840). Helena Whitbread, the editor of these diaries, has painstakingly decoded and transcribed the entries. She offers an excellent introduction to the book with historical background as well as a discussion of her involvement with the diaries.