For those of you who have never heard of Anne Lister, she was a woman who lived in the early 19^th century and who is known today as a very famous lesbian. She kept diaries written in code, and when the diaries were decrypted after her death, they revealed graphic details of her many lesbian relationships. I first learned of Anne Lister when I watched the BBC series Gentleman Jack, which focused on her relationship with Ann Walker, whom she “married” and was her partner until her death in 1840. Gentleman Jack is a fantastic series, and Anne Lister is a fascinating historical figure in how she openly lived an unconventional life for a woman of her time. She is what drew me to read Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, Learned by Heart, which is a fictional account of one of Anne Lister’s earliest relationships as a teenager with a girl she went to school with named Eliza Raine.

Learned by Heart is told from the perspective of Eliza Raine, which makes for a more sympathetic read. Eliza Raine was a biracial heiress, the illegitimate daughter of an English doctor who worked for the East India Company and his Indian “wife”. Eliza was born in India but sent to England with her older sister when she was age six to go to school and learn to become a “proper English lady” – which she could never be because of racist attitudes towards people of colour. She never saw her mother again, and her father died a year after she was sent to England during his own voyage home. Eliza was fourteen years old and attending a boarding school at King’s Manor in York when she met Anne Lister.

In Learned by Heart, Eliza is consigned, alone, to the attic room at school while the other girls share a dorm. She does not experience outright hostility, but rather the casual racism of the English. She has one close friend, but otherwise feels like an outcast for being illegitimate and having dark skin. Her feelings change after Anne Lister arrives at her school, and she is forced to share her attic room with her. Eliza is at first put off by Anne, who is tom boyish, outspoken, and prone to getting into trouble. But Anne is one of those witty, charming people that others cannot help but be drawn to, and it is not long before everyone in their year is friends with her.

Eliza and Anne’s bond is special, though. Anne tells Eliza that she is beautiful, and she makes Eliza feel wanted and loved, while everyone else sees Eliza’s skin colour and murky parentage as a “stain”. Anne guides Eliza into a sexual relationship, and Eliza gives her heart and body to Anne even though she finds herself torn between the idea that their love is a sin and the belief that their love is natural and perfect. The intensity of Eliza’s feelings towards Anne and the hope that Anne gives her is what lends beauty to their relationship as it is depicted in this novel.

But the true nature of Anne’s feelings towards Eliza seems less certain. One cannot help but feel that Anne has found an opportunity to prey on a naïve, beautiful and wealthy girl. There is one scene that I found unsettling, when Eliza wakes to find Anne making love to her and afterwards Anne apologizes for not asking for Eliza’s consent first. Anne seems to be the kind of person who always takes but gives very little in return and is driven by lust. The one-sided nature of their relationship is evident by the depiction of Eliza’s letters to Anne, but with no letters from Anne to Eliza.

There is an Author’s Note at the end of the novel that includes a biography of Eliza’s life after she left the school at King’s Manor. I will not reveal the rest of Eliza’s life here, but it makes me sad to think that Eliza Raine was a real person who was mistreated not just by English society for having the “wrong” skin colour, but also by Anne Lister, who dumped her and moved on to the next woman. Eliza Raine deserved so much more. I appreciate that Emma Donoghue was so moved by Eliza’s story that she shined a light on her existence and gave her new life in this novel. I feel the more I learn about Anne Lister, the less there is to like about her, so I am glad that Learned by Heart is not completely focused on her.