Rambling, Regency, Queer-Coded Communities among Anne Lister and Her Roving Ilk

The 1810s offer decadent examples of Regency queerness including Anne Lister’s diaries, the publication of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s queer gothic ‘Christabel,’ and Byron’s queer heroes in his Oriental tales. Not singular oddities, these figures speak to queer communities at varying levels of British society. Though Lister documents a series of queer lovers, her writing likewise amasses a queer community, particularly within triadic flirtation and polyamory. ‘Christabel’ and Lister’s diaries both showcase queerness and class-crossings as intertwined and multiple, also apparent in Lister’s own gender movements, identifying as ‘a gent’ and frequently traveling. These connections recur within newspaper stories of gender-crossing patriotic sailors and Byronic queer naval spaces, particularly the sailor-heroes in Lara and The Corsair whose conflicts become symptomatic of queerness in search of community.