Series 1: Episode One
The Real Diaries of Anne Lister
Gentleman Jack is based on the real diaries of Anne Lister, who sometimes wrote in code to disguise her innermost thoughts.
Here we have selected extracts from the diary and explain how they feature in the episode.
In Anne's Diary: 15th April 1832
Anne writes...
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Met Captain Cameron. She asked him to dinner. The murder is out. We talked it over, she will not say ‘no’, so ‘tis done…
Later in the diary entry
What a sudden change for us all, for me too. She will go to Italy, but not with me.
Well, tho’ I made my eyes very red with crying before dinner, I already begin to think it is better. She would have left me in the lurch.
Anne and Vere Hobart
Anne’s return to Shibden in May 1832, when Gentleman Jack begins, was prompted by the dashing of her hopes for a romantic relationship with aristocratic Vere Hobart. The two women had set up rooms together in the fashionable seaside town of Hastings over the winter of 1831-32.
In this passage, Anne learns that Vere – the sophisticated, upper class embodiment of her ideal woman - has become engaged to Captain Donald Cameron. Though she exhibits some bravado in her writing, the disappointment would go on to affect her deeply. In Episode One of Gentleman Jack we see flashbacks to this scene, and even see Anne trying to pull out these pages of her diary.
Learn more
Anne Lister’s diaries – along with other items that belonged to her – are kept at the Calderdale Archives in Halifax.
Visit their website to find out more, and practice your mastery of Anne’s code on high-resolution digitised scans of every page.
