Gentleman Jack

Meet Anne Lister, the 18th Century landowner, industrialist, explorer and lesbian, and your new feminist icon.

The official companion to a major new BBC drama series staring Suranne Jones and featuring extracts from Anne Lister's own diaries, Gentleman Jack is a remarkable and unlikely love story, set in the complex, changing world of Halifax - the cradle of the industrial revolution.

After years of exotic travel, Anne Lister returns to Halifax, West Yorkshire in 1832, determined to transform the fate of her faded ancestral home, Shibden Hall. To restore Shibden to its former glory, Anne must re-open her coal mines and marry well. Charismatic, single-minded and swashbuckling - she dressed head-to-foot in black and charmed her way into high society - Anne has no intention of marrying a man. Instead she has set her sights on the wealthy socialite, Ann Walker ...


With a foreword by Sally Wainwright (Last Tango In Halifax, Happy Valley) Gentleman Jack tells Anne's story in intimate detail, with insights and extended extracts from the 4 million words worth of personal diaries she left behind.Once hidden in a secret code, many passages of Anne's diary have been decoded exclusively for this book.