Travel was key to Anne Lister’s sense of self and has played an important part in shaping her posthumous reputation. Famously, she was the first amateur to climb the Vignemale in the French Pyrenees in 1838 and died on one of her most ambitious journeys to Russia in 1840. Scholarship on her diaries in the mid-twentieth century highlighted these and other more local travels. Changing social attitudes, which made possible the publication of decoded passages of Lister’s diaries in the 1980s, meant that Lister’s diaries were no longer valued primarily for their social history content. To understand Lister’s life fully we need, I suggest, to investigate more closely how Anne Lister’s diaries can be read as life writing and travel writing. Citing evidence from Lister’s home tours in the 1820s, I will argue that a distinctive female voice such as Lister’s is an important,but until now neglected, element in the recovery of female travel writing, which has been a recent focus for scholars. I will show that descriptions of travel in Lister’s diaries offer both a rich resource for the study of tourism and also contribute to our understanding of her emotional life and relationships.

Little Racer

Round One

We were right nearby when it happened. We were out drinking in the Pilz, Rico, Mark, and I. I don’t know why we were drinking in the Pilz that night; we didn’t drink there often, even though the beer was cheap. We usually went to the Grüne Aue or to see Goldie at the Traktorist, but maybe we had some kind of sense that something was up that night, and we’d been drinking in Pitbull’s cellar beforehand, and sometimes when you’ve had a few you see the whole truth before you and sometimes even a tiny piece of the future, but if we’d seen what was going to happen we’d have gone looking for Walter, all around our part of town, all around the whole city, and if we’d found him we’d have locked him in Pitbull’s cellar, even if Pitbull hadn’t wanted us to — he lived down there, after all — or we’d have taken him to Leipzig-Southeast police station and asked the cops to cuff him to the radiator, he knew that well enough, he’d have leaned his head against the wall and maybe slept a bit.

But we didn’t sense anything, and we didn’t see anything, Rico, Mark, and I; we were out drinking in the Pilz. Paul was supposed to come but he didn’t, he must have had another row with his mother. Pitbull had had a row with his mother too, she’d gone at him with a bottle because we’d made so much noise drinking, and now Pitbull was lying in his cellar having a rest.

“I don’t get it,” said Rico. “Paul’s old lady’s a control freak, she has to plan everything. When he’s allowed out, when he comes back. She should just leave him alone. She should get herself a proper man instead.”

“Would you do her?” asked Mark. “I mean, just for a shag …”

“Leave it out,” I said, “It’s his mother, for God’s sake!”

“She’s not bad, Danny, she’s not even forty. Maybe a bit dried up, she needs a young lad to get her juices flowing, know what I mean, she’s hot for it, you should see how she looks at me …”