Emma Donoghue’s latest offering is inspired by the true story of Anne Lister, set at the turn of the 19th century. Lister became went on to become known as the first “modern lesbian”, but Donoghue chooses to focus this tale on her formative years before fame and notoriety. It’s told from the point of view of the lesser-known Elisa Raine, who was sent England from Madras at the age of six, where she went on to attend boarding school and embarked on an intense relationship with Lister.

I have long followed Emma Donoghue’s writing, and I have to admit a part of me is always searching for the shocking, all-consuming reading experience I had with Room. I didn’t quite find this here – at times this book felt a little slow and overly detailed. It’s not a plot-driven novel, more a slow burn, emotive character study and astute examination of the views and inequalities of the time.

I personally had no prior knowledge of Anne Lister and her prolific relationships, and I’m sure others with more knowledge of the background would get a lot more out of this novel. As it was, I could still appreciate Donoghue’s evocative writing and vivid depiction of a place and moment in time. I have a small connection with York, and I loved the way this historical setting was brought to life through the author’s prose. It’s an extremely well-researched historical drama and a tender depiction of a young romance.

Having watched Sally Wainwright's excellent TV series "Gentleman Jack", I knew of Anne Lister and was interested to read a further fictional account featuring her. In this book we learn something of Anne's schooldays, seen through the eyes of her friend Eliza Raine. The picture of a girls' school in the early 19th century is detailed and credible, set in the context of the social norms of the time, which deem both Anne and Eliza as outsiders. Their touching relationship is almost inevitable and its later impact on Eliza is consistent with what we learn of Anne's behaviour through the publication of her letters and diaries.
The book is meticulously researched, as the author's note shows. Emma Donoghue learned about Anne long before the TV series but pays tribute to it for prompting further interest in her and opening up new further sources. But the book stands as a worthwhile novel in its own right, a beautifully written story of young girls growing up in the society of the Regency period.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

The story of Eliza and Lister, who meet at boarding school in 1805, and form an intense friendship and eventually love affair. Based on the true story of Anne Lister., this is a beautifully written and evocative novel with very perceptive descriptions of the time and the place/status of women.

This is the third book by Emma Donoghue i have read and i was really excited, however this one fell a little flat for me.
I really enjoyed the development of both characters and getting to know them. But the dialogue between the two felt really awkward to read at times. They were also so young, only 14 and without being crude, some of the actions talked about felt very wrong.
After finishing the book, i read up on the true story and found that to be much more interesting than this book.
Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book.

i've read a few of emma donaghue's books now and she's so good at enveloping you in the setting and the characters and getting you to slowly and steadily care for them and their relationship. i didn't know much about anne lister before i read this but i'm interested in learning more

As i expected I really enjoyed reading this book. A love story thats told extremely well. Highly recommended.

This book will particularly interest readers who are interested in the life of Anne Lister aka Gentleman Jack.

It's set in a girl's boarding school where a friendship develops between Eliza and Anne. Eliza is the daughter of an Indian mother and English Army father (so called country marriage) and suffers prejudice as a result. This is her "cell" - see below
Some reviewers have said that the book moves slowly, but that is the point. As with The Haven or Room , the author is writing about repression and confinement with all the strictures involved.
The boarding school experience is dictated by the expectations of women at the time, their class and also the routines of a school day. Escape is there through the private world that the two girls have in their room (the Slope) or through the occasional escapade led by the charismatic and daring Anne.

I was interested in the author's notes at the end about her research for the book- well worth reading if you want a further insight into the book.

An entertaining thought provoking read .

"The heartbreaking story of the love of two women – Anne Lister, the real-life inspiration behind Gentleman Jack, and her first love, Eliza Raine "
While this novel is clearly well-researched, I sometimes find it slow-moving. In saying that, it was beautifully written and I think it is lovely that the focus is more on Eliza Raine, a woman time forgot but Emam Donoghue has brought back to the fore.

historical fiction about young anne listers first love, based on annes diaries & elizas letters. it alternates between them falling in love at boarding school and rebelling against the current time period, to future eliza sending anne letters from an asylum. it's super well researched with details of how this was done at the end, and is beautifully written. I really really enjoyed this but I didn't like the amount of sex scenes which was a bit weird to say they are 14/15 years old.

💕 REVIEW 💕

Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue
Released: 24th August 2023 (pick it up now!!)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Learned By Heart is a novel based on the true story of Eliza Raine, a biracial girl who moves from India to England in the 1800s, joining an all-girls school to essentially prepare her for marriage. While there, she meets Anne Lister, a girl unlike anyone she’s ever met before, and she’s captivated. We follow their story in two timelines, unravelling their admiration and obsession with each other, while also reflecting on their relationship 10 years later.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, I felt the development of the relationship was so well-done and realistic, I was so invested in it. I think I would have preferred there to be more investigation into the later timeline, with more detail into each of the key incidents (trying not to give spoilers, sorry it’s very vague). I was surprised to find that this was based on a true story, as I had never heard of Anne Lister before, but appreciated the information given by the author at the end.
Overall, I recommend for anyone interested in a historical novel based on a true story of coming-of-age and falling in love in a girls school in the 19th century.

#bookstagram #book #bookstagramuk #booktok #bookhaul #booktok #bookrecommendations #booklover #bookstack #flatlay #kindlereads #kindle #fiction #nonfiction #2023reads #tbr #tbrpile #netgalley #netgalleyreads #reading #readmore #reader #literaryfiction #contemporaryfiction #bookreview #historicalfiction #lgbtfiction #emmadonoghue

Learned By Heart is about a real woman called Eliza Raine, who fell in love with her classmate Anne Lister (subject of the BBC television show “Gentleman Jack”) when they were schoolgirls in the early 19th century. The most interesting part of the story for me was Raine's attending of an English school as a mixed race person having travelled from colonial India. She is accepted in the school but her feeling is that it always comes with conditions because of her ethnicity and darker skin and so feels like a complete outsider, and in O'Donoghue's novel this is what causes her being roomed with Lister and later understanding her as another person who doesn't seem to fit with the status quo.

It is a very slow read, and I found it hard to get into because I lacked enough knowledge about the subject. I got a lot out of the author’s note at the end of the book, and I have to say I was impressed with the depth of Donoghue’s research as well as her passion for her subject. However, if I had read that note from the author at the beginning of the book it would have helped me connect to the characters, who I felt quite distant from.

I normally would give up on a book about fifty to one hundred pages through if I wasn’t enjoying it, but I knew that Donoghue writes brilliant endings, and indeed in Learned by Heart she really picks up the pace three quarters of the way in. Suddenly, I found myself understanding the characters, and the very end is so raw, so passionate, and so full of agonised longing I was completely swept away.

I definitely prefer Room, The Wonder, and The Pull of the Stars, but I’m sure there will be readers who will also love Learned by Heart.

Emma Donaghue is astounding. She is a prolific novellist who writes about so many different things. Her last novel was set in Ireland in the 7th Century. Learned by Heart is set in York during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. I am in awe!
Her latest novel is touching, heartbreaking and beautifully written. I didn't realise until I finished that the inspiration for the novel was Anne Lister, also known as Gentleman Jack. It is set during her school days in a girls boarding school in York. The detail of the times and the setting were exceptionally believable and clearly well researched. I appreciated the innocent and passionate development of the relationship between Lister and Raine, and felt for the isolated and desperately lonely Eliza Raine, an Anglo-Indian child who was so hurt by the loss of her parents and birthplace . While it wasn't the focus, the sensitively included discrimination that Eliza faced at school and probably more widely in Georgian England was well placed and essential to our understanding of her trauma and later mental health issues.
I definitely recommend this gentle and sensitive book.

Received an ARC courtesy of NetGalley; my opinion is my own.

I mostly enjoy Donoghue's historical fiction (in contrast to that horrible contemporary bestseller). Learned by Heart takes the author back to her early fascination, Anne Lister, though she approaches this historical ur-lesbian sideways, through the perspective of her teenage beloved, Indian British heiress, Eliza Raine. The novel definitely scratched the semi-forgotten itch for boarding school fiction that I once had, but with a distinctly adult twist - this is not a happy story, nor a simple one.

The protagonist is believable and tragic, complex and sympathetic. Lister changes her for the better, in some ways, but also helps to break her - and even if the book wasn't based on real people and real events, this would have read so believable and true. Such a waste of life, such a cruel time. And today is not that much better for many.

This novel centres around two real historical figures who are: Eliza Raine, a wealthy orphan of mixed English and Indian heritage, and Ann Lister, a notoriously prolific diarist of the early nineteenth century who is sometimes dubbed the ‘first modern lesbian’ on account of those diaries. Eliza and Ann first meet in the novel at King’s Manor boarding school for girls, where they probably also met in reality - and first become ‘best friends’, before their relationship becomes much deeper. We also read from the point of view of Eliza, ten years later, when life has changed dramatically for her, and gradually we begin to understand where she is and what impact Lister has had on her life. Eliza is a really lovely protagonist, full of all sorts of doubts and worries and passions, and it’s really interesting to see how her relationship with Lister slowly changes her, while I’d say that Lister remains mostly the same, being already strongly confident in who she is at the age of fourteen. Having read the notes at the end of the novel on the real historical events and characters, I’d say this novel is a very likely account of what really happened as well as just a novel - and it wonderfully portrays the emotions of Eliza and Ann and the atmosphere of this rather strict boarding school environment they would have found themselves in.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Picador for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I have read two books by this author Room and The Wonder and really enjoyed them. Unfortunately this one is not for me. After reading the synopsis I though that this would be really interesting but I found that the constant dialogue between the girls tedious and never ending. I can see that it was to set the scene and also to get more of Listers character but I could not gel with it. Having said that I did enjoy the letters from Raine to Lister in the alternate chapters. There has been a tremendous amount of research done by the author and it is evident in the writing. I felt the time period was described wonderfully and the views on race and class was accurate for the time. A very atmospheric novel but I struggled to get through it.

Wow what an unexpected adventure. I just had no idea what the book was about. The story was enthralling and in some ways heartbreaking. What a beautifully written book about a very important period of history.

Eliza Raine is the daughter of a East India Company doctor and a beautiful Indian mother. After the death of both she has ended up at the Manor School in York where she is expected to learn social graces but doesn't really fit in due to her skin. She forms a passionate friendship with a new student, Lister, a strange and intelligent hoyden whose family have little money and few prospects. As their relationship grows into something physical, the cracks start to appear.
This is a little like 'Gentleman Jack's Schooldays' but is such a wonderfully written novel that even though it covers so many aspects, it never feels token or woke, it just shimmers with delight. Donoghue is a terrific writer and, although superficially a story about two schoolfriends, the plotlines around lesbianism, race and prejudice and mental health are underplayed but powerful. It's based on the true story of the early life of Anne Lister and her relationship with Eliza Raine so is well researched and tenderly handled.

Meticulously researched, impeccably paced and artfully told, this is historical fiction at its finest. Vivid characters, drawn with compassion and conviction, live their lives in a skilfully drawn Regency England that grounds their behaviours strongly in time and place. Simply beautiful.

With thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I remember when Emma Donoghue brought out 'Room' and I thought 'Bloody hell!' It seemed very promising for her future, as I'd been a fan of hers since my teens, enjoying her lower-key works ('Slammerkin' is fairly underrated and 'Harlots' owes it quite a bit, I think, despite being mainly based on Hallie Rubenhold's book).

However, since her shed-based breakout, she seems to have returned to old-school form with period dramas and longing lesbian glances. With Gentleman Jack so popular at the moment, and Donoghue's immaculate writing, you'd think this would be a home run.

However, like some other esteemed writers of the moment - Kate Atkinson's leaden Shrines of Gaiety springs to mind - her research seems to have taken over, bogging down the young boarding-school lovers in levels of detail that clog the narrative like marmalade. I am hoping to finish this book still, and also hoping that someone takes their corsets off soon.

A brilliantly researched fictionalised story of two young girls meeting at boarding school and growing into a relationship that they, or certainly Eliza, believe they have ‘invented’ - but it is, of course, a loving and erotic lesbian union. Haunting and heartbreaking as the girls move into their very different and divergent adult lives I was deeply involved in poor Eliza’s unhappiness and mental breakdown.