Research in English

Research done by the Anne Lister Italia team, translated in English.

A world of people and events still orbits around Anne Lister that we continue to investigate, discover and tell you about here.

Published
30 March 2024

Updated
30 March 2024

Anne Lister & Ann Walker's Passport

A few months after exchanging rings and taking the sacraments together, Anne Lister and Ann Walker set off on their honeymoon, which was also the first long journey they finally took together. After leaving York in June 1834, they visited France and Switzerland, also spending about a month in the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Image: a detail of the passport, West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, SH:7/ML/775. Photo by Irene Trotta

Published
19 June 2023

Updated
19 June 2023

Mme de Bourke aka Maria Assunta Leonida Butini

Madame la Comtesse de Bourke was one of Anne Lister’s Parisian acquaintances. Actually, Anne Lister met her in Paris, but was she French? Not really. After travelling far and wide, Countess de Bourke had settled in the French capital, but she was actually Italian! Born in Siena in 1764, she became a traveller, an art collector, an opera lover, an entrepreneur and a surprising philanthropist!

Image: a letter addressed to Countess Maria Assunta Leonida de Bourke. Source: Rigsarkivet. Photo by Lucia Falzari.

Published
30 January 2023

Updated
30 January 2023

The code: how did Anne Lister write her journal?

The legacy of Anne Lister’s journals is undoubtedly one of the richest and most detailed up to today. Even though her earliest journaling (between 1806 and 18010) mainly consisted of notes written on loose sheets, the 26 volumes covering the years between 1816 and 1840 show regular writing practice and habits.

Image: the cover of one of Anne Lister's journals. Image courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive.

Published
24 June 2022

Updated
24 June 2022

Mrs. Barlow: she's in Italy

Catherine Maria McCrea Barlow was born on December 28, 1786, in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, daughter to Major Robert McCrea and his first wife Jeanne Coutart. On September 7, 1808, in the parish church of her birthplace, Maria married Frederick Barlow, Lieutenant Colonel of the 61st Regiment of Foot (South Gloucestershire), and about two years later she gave birth to their only daughter Jane Maria.

Image: Sala Bianca, Palazzo Pitti. Photo by Luigi Raia.

Published
19 December 2021

Updated
26 August 2022

Anne Lister in Edward O’Ferrall’s prophecy

We started our research investigating Anne Lister’s Italian acquaintances, and just decided to follow some thin threads, thus leaving no stone unturned. This led us far North to Denmark, where we've found some extraordinary words about Anne.

Image: the letter where Edward O'Ferrall mentions "Miss Lister". Courtesy of Rigsarkivet, photo by Lucia Falzari.

Published
22 November 2021

Updated
22 November 2022

Sophie O'Ferrall Confalonieri

In the summer of 1833, Anne Lister traveled from Paris to Copenhagen with a young woman as her companion: Miss Sophie O'Ferrall. We try to understand who Sophie really was through the many precious unpublished letters from her family that we found in the archives between Italy and Denmark.

Image: one of Sophie O'Ferrall's letters. Courtesy of Rigsarkivet, photo by Lucia Falzari.

Published
9 October 2020

Updated
19 January 2022

The death of John Walker Jr.

Who was John Walker? And why are we interested in talking about him? In the records of the "Archivi di Stato" in Naples we found the death certificate of John Walker, brother of Ann Walker.

Image: Golfo di Napoli con Vesuvio visti da Sant'Antonio a Posillipo, Franz Ludwig Catel, ca. 1818–20. Thaw Collection, Jointly Owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Eugene V. Thaw, 2009.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse