Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire (review)

Since Anne Lister (1791–1840) was both a keen walker and an amorous lover, Jill Liddington's new book, which focuses on the connection in Anne's life between sexual desire and garden design, is appropriate and welcome. In Nature's Domain Liddington makes available to a wider readership the entries in Anne Lister's journals that detail her preoccupation with the sexual nature of space, the "landscape of desire." Anne's romantic-era passion for sexualizing her landscape was not distinct from her search for a lifelong female companion, and both aspects of her identity can be found on an almost daily basis in the entries she made during a lifetime of journal keeping. In Nature's Domain Liddington focuses on a mature period in Anne's life, when the confluence of her landscape designs and her intentions to establish a satisfactory intimate relationship is at its most apparent.

Nature's Domain opens with Anne's journal entries from spring 1832. Then in her early forties, she had been mistress of Shibden Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire, for six years after inheriting the estate upon the death of her Uncle James in 1826. Once she became mistress of Shibden Hall Anne put into effect her dreams of traveling extensively abroad. But by 1832, after several years of touring, Anne realized that a Continental existence was becoming increasingly beyond her means. At the same time, her most recent relationship with Vere Hobart (later Cameron) had finally ended with Vere's marriage. So in May 1832 Anne returned to her home and family at Shibden Hall. Perhaps to distract herself from these disappointing matters, she began to make grand plans for her garden, including designs for a walk and even a chaumière, a thatched cottage. Over the course of the next several months these plans for her estate ran parallel to her increasing courtship of a neighboring heiress, Ann Walker. As her relationship with Ann Walker became more ardent and sexual, Anne's building designs changed. Instead of a communal thatched cottage, the structure became in due course a moss hut—a much more intimate space and a key site for what was to be a passionate but difficult relationship.

In Nature's Domain readers can follow the almost daily episodes of this relationship and become aware of the intertwined and complex nature of Anne's homosexuality and husbandry. The opening entries present Anne at this turning point in her life—ready to come home to find a companion and a life that would be, as Anne wrote in her cryptic language, "within my compass" (15). At first this life companion appeared to be Mariana Lawton (M—), Anne's lover for over twenty years and one of her most devoted companions. However, it became apparent during Anne's visit to Cheshire, where M— lived with her husband, Charles Lawton, that this relationship was not as strong as it had formerly been. Once characterized by great passion, it had now, Anne wrote, "sunk down to all but common friendship" (17). Since the possibility of a future together with M— was no longer an option, Anne set aside the ring that she had exchanged with her some sixteen years before. In her journal she wrote compellingly of how, "here I am, at forty-one, with a heart to seek" (18). It is this romantic search and its settlement upon Ann Walker that Nature's Domain follows.

Once she had returned home to Shibden Hall, Anne began to examine her immediate Halifax society, for it was from this circle of women within her compass that she might even "get some companion by-an-by" (28). In considering the nearby gentlewomen of consequence that she could call upon, she made particular note of "Miss Walker of Lidgate" (28). However, several months passed before Anne became reacquainted with Miss Walker. The significance of this reacquaintance was not immediately apparent, for Anne was overwhelmed...