LHMP #564d Orr 2006 A Sojourn in Paris - Sexuality and Sociality in Anne’s Journals

In this section, Orr challenges the accepted ideas about the meaning and uses of Lister’s “crypt hand.” Most previous editors have presented excerpts from the diaries that do not clearly distinguish material recorded in cipher from that in ordinary writing. Whitbread notes the crypt hand was used to record Lester’s “intimate” (that is, sexual) life, creating the impression that her sexual and emotional observations were always encrypted and that crypt hand was used only for this purpose. But the crypt hand was also used in correspondence with her intimate partners–the sharing of the key was an almost ritual aspect of a shift in her relationship with someone.

Even so, the correlation of the use of crypt hand with content related to sexuality has helped produce a segregation in analysis and theorizing about Lister’s life, depending on whether a researcher utilized the encrypted materials or not. The encryption also helped enable censorship about her sexuality, beginning with John Lister’s published excerpts that drew only from the “public” portions.

When examined across writing modes (crypt versus plain) and genres (journal versus letters), Lister’s voice is notably consistent. With respect to the use of crypt hand, Whitbread concluded it was used for matters that Lister wished to keep secret–not only sexual matters, but thoughts about her clothing. Some researchers have identified the crypt hand a type of “closet,” enabling Lister to create a separation of her public and private identities. Yet Lister’s commentary on both her sexuality and use of the crypt hand do not reflect this idea. She expresses no stigma about her desires, considering them utterly natural. And her internal dialogues about her sexuality appear in both types of writing, intertwined with each other. Further, Listers “plain hand” had its own version of obfuscation, in a dense system of abbreviations and cramped writing. When she found Maria Barlow examining her journal she made no protest, suggesting she “make out what you can,” evidently considering the decipherment of even plain hand to be sufficient barrier.

The crypt hand had its own arc of evolution, initially used to record brief expressions of emotion and only later expanding to extensive passages; expanding from the use of Greek letters to a more extensive repertory. Handwriting was not the only technique used to create meaningfully distinct texts. When Lister first became involved with Mariana, she began a new journal specific to recording that relationship. Rather than her name being transcribed, Mariana was assigned a unique symbol within the text. By the time of her relationship with Mariana, Lister had developed her own sexual vocabulary, using “kiss” to indicate an orgasm, and ‘cross” or a cross symbol to indicate masturbation.

In Rowanchild’s analysis of the journals, she identifies the network of women with whom Lister shared the key to the crypt hand, representing a privileged “inner circle” of women who engaged in same-sex relations.