Learned by Heart

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 show more 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. show less

Based on years of research, Emma Donoghue’s impassioned novel, Learned by Heart, documents a real-life queer love affair from 200 years ago undertaken against the prevailing morals of the time and at great risk to the participants. The seeds of the story are to be found in the secret journal that Anne Lister (1791-1840) compiled over her lifetime, and which eventually ran to 5 million words. Learned by Heart is set primarily during the 1805-06 school year. Eliza Raine (1791-1860), an orphan, is a student boarding at the Manor School for young ladies in York, placed there by her guardian, Dr. Duffin. Eliza, 15, and her older sister Jane are from India, the offspring of a white Englishman and his Indian companion. Not long before the show more novel opens, following the deaths of their parents, the sisters accompanied the doctor to England. Eliza, an heiress who will inherit a share of the family’s modest fortune upon her 21st birthday, is intelligent and a conscientious student but also painfully timid and sensitive to the fact that her dark skin sets her apart and makes her an object of curiosity among her schoolmates and the people she meets in the town. Cherishing her privacy, she feels privileged to have a small room all to herself on the school’s isolated top floor, though she also can’t help wondering at times if she’s been assigned that room to keep her separate from the other students, who live within the same building in a communal setting. The room is key to the events that follow. One day a new student appears, Anne Lister, the same age as Eliza but something of an oddity with a tomboyish aspect and an impulsive manner that seems to respect few boundaries. With nowhere else to put her, Miss Hargrave, the school’s Head, places Anne in the room with Eliza. Initially resentful at having her solitude violated by a chatterbox who seems to enjoy showing off how smart she is, Eliza and Anne soon form a caring, trusting and, eventually, affectionate bond, one that over several months of spending a great deal of time alone together in extremely close quarters evolves into a physical sexual relationship. At this point the account of their friendship is dominated by hidden passions, fear of discovery, and naïve scheming to somehow run away together. The reader, however, already knows that something has happened to thwart this plan because Donoghue’s framing of her tale of love in a dangerous time includes letters that Eliza is writing to Anne in 1815, ten years after the main action. Learned by Heart is gripping and deeply felt, and it shares with the author’s earlier historical fictions the features that make those works so compulsively readable: full-blooded characterization, convincing dialogue, and rich period detail that brings the time and place of the story vibrantly alive in the reader’s mind. Donoghue’s contribution to queer history in this novel is considerable, and her afterword describing how the book came about is informative and almost as diverting as the novel that precedes it. Learned by Heart is a welcome addition to Donoghue’s impressive oeuvre and is sure to appeal to fans of well-written and -researched historical fiction. show less

Emma Donoghue is best known for her novel Room, but she also writes incredibly well researched historical fiction. I haven’t kept up with her latest releases – they’re sitting on my TBR pile through no fault but my own, so I thought it was time to get back into reading her novels. As always, Learned by Heart creates a wonderful atmosphere, this time in a boarding school in 19th century York between two young women.

The novel starts off relatively slowly as the reader is introduced to Eliza Raine, an orphan sent to England from India with her sister at a young age. Eliza is half-Indian, and she describes many instances of where she is shamed for the colour of her skin. One example is that she lives alone on the floor with the show more school’s maids while the other students share rooms. That is until Anne Lister – ‘call me Lister’ – arrives. Lister is much wiser than the other girls at the school, both academically and in the rules of the world. She is sent to share with Eliza and they become friends, then eventually lovers. The story focuses on the evolution of their relationship, mixed in with schoolgirl problems and the issues facing women at that time. The story also jumps between that time to an older Eliza, writing to Lister and showing the differences between their fates and life. As the time periods become closer together, emotions are heightened and the drama intensified.

I went into this novel knowing nothing about Anne Lister, her diaries, Eliza Raine and the Gentleman Jack television series so it was a surprise to find out that this tragic story is real. Little is known about Eliza Raine, as Donoghue explains in the author’s note, but she is crafted into a complex character. Donoghue clearly demonstrates the complexity of her situation, being quite rich but not truly accepted by society for her colour and her illegitimate birth. Race is intertwined with class as the other schoolgirls compete on whose family owns what and their importance in social standing. Added to that are multiple issues for women at the time - a pregnant schoolgirl is hauled out of the communal hall never to be seen or spoke of again. Another girl must leave immediately to tend to her family after a death at home. The majority of the girls are there to be ‘finished off’ ready for marriage rather than any intellectual pursuit (indeed, scholarly lessons are only half the day while ‘accomplishments’ like dancing and music cost extra in the afternoons). Lister’s character is there to demonstrate the difference in thinking, not just due to sexuality but intellect and options limited to lone women like travel. The ending is emotionally fraught, but unfortunately that is what happened in real life.

Learned by Heart is an insight into same sex love and the limitations for women in the early 1800s. It’s a topic Donoghue is clearly passionate about, and this shines through in both the writing and her lengthy author’s note at the conclusion of the novel.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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Learned by Heart is one of those books that takes you by the heart, pulling you along on a story of passionate, but frustrated love. The lovers in this instance are two young women at a boarding school in York in the early 1800s. The novel is based on the extensive, coded diaries of Anne Lister, one of those two young women. Anne is a tomboy determined to live life on her own terms, continually looking for challenges, continually asking questions, continually being "inappropriate." Anne is simultaneously viewed enthusiastically and dubiously by other girls at the school. The second of the two lovers is Eliza Raine, the daughter of a a British medic stationed in India and an Indian woman. She's shipped off to boarding school after the show more death of her father. Someday, she'll be an heiress, but right now she's just a young woman living on the margins, marked by skin color.

Some people will know Anne already as she's the inspiration for Gentleman Jack, the central figure of a British television series that ran from 2019 to 2022. The adult Anne(Jack) cross-dresses and takes a series of female partners. Anne and Eliza were lovers when they were in school together. Anne was a committed diarist, who kept a coded record of her life that Emma Donoghue has used as the basis for this novel.

While Donoghue used Lister's journals as the starting place for this novel, she tells the story through the eyes of Eliza Raine, which adds richness and leaves room for Donoghue the writer to construct the novel in her own way. Raine's story is less well-known and less-successful than Lister's. Eliza spent large parts of her adult life in and out of asylums—and Learned by Heart is presented as a work penned by Raine during one of the times when she was kept away from the world. Her feelings for/about Lister swing widely. Sometimes Lister is her "one true love" and Raine is spending her life waiting for Lister's return. At other times, Raine views Lister as both disappointing and infuriating, focused on her own pleasures and unconcerned with the pain she causes others.

As always, Donoghue does an excellent job getting inside her characters, bringing readers into their minds and hearts, as well as the world they inhabit. If you are interested in lesbian history, women's history, the impact of colonialism, historical fiction, or complicated romance this is a book to keep an eye out for.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own. show less

I loved being immersed in the setting of an all-girls' boarding school in York in the early 1800's. As a graduate of an all-women's college, I find that, in many ways, some things have not changed--from deep friendships to classroom banter.

This is the story of Eliza Raine and Anne Lister. Best friends and then lovers, this unlikely pair are the readers' guide through their world of girls' education, marital and societal expectations, and family dynamics. Eliza is Indian, the daughter of an Englishmen who passed away when she was a child. Her dark skin made her stand out among her pale classmates. Always self-conscious of her ethnicity and illegitimate parentage, Eliza was an "exotic" match to Anne's boyish enthusiasm and mischief.

While show more a love story at its core, LEARNED BY HEART is also a story of sadness and broken hearts. Eliza is a character that won't soon leave my heart. I hope someone picks this story up and makes a movie out of it! show less

Emma Donoghue is most famous for her book Room which was made into a movie. For me, though, that book is an outlier in Donoghue's oeuvre. Most of her books have been historical fiction: The Pull of the Stars was set during the Spanish flu pandemic, The Wonder involves a nurse trained by Florence Nightingale, Frog Music takes place in 1876 in San Francisco. So, this book which is set in the early 19th century continues that tradition.

Eliza Raine was born in Madras, India to an English father and an Indian mother. At a young age she was sent to England to be educated and soon after her parents died. She will be wealthy when she attains her majority and, in the meantime, her guardian in York seems to give her ample spending money. During show more the school year she lives at a boarding school just outside York but she experiences some racism due to her mixed heritage from the other girls. She sleeps in a small room under the eaves near the rooms of the maids and the cook instead of a dorm room with other girls. Then a new student, Anne Lister, joins the school and is put into the same room with Eliza. Anne comes from a rather poor farming family in Yorkshire so she is quite the polar opposite to Eliza. And, yet, the two girls become fast friends and then lovers. Their relationship ends when Anne breaks her leg (in an escapade of the type she is known for and which she encourages Eliza to take part in) and has to go home to her family. It was only a year that they were together but Eliza remained deeply in love with Anne for the rest of her life. Ten years later, when Anne had moved on to other women, Eliza was sent to an insane asylum that the schoolgirls used to walk beside and wondered about the people incarcerated there. Eliza composes letters to Anne as she swings from depression to mania but it is doubtful that those letters ever reached Anne. Through these letters we learn a lot about Eliza but Anne stays enigmatic.

Eliza and Anne were real people and Anne, at least, is rather famous as one of the first openly lesbian women. She left behind copious journals which were written in code about her many love affairs. Emma Donoghue has said she has been obsessed by Eliza and Anne for many years and that she particularly wanted to give voice to Eliza. I listened to the audiobook which made the developing relationship and then its end particularly poignant. show less

This novel is based on a true story: in the early 1800s, two fourteen year old students at a British girls’ boarding school fall into a passionate, yet secret, lesbian relationship. They also talk. A lot.

Emma Donohue has written a few books (Room, The Wonder, and Haven) I have enjoyed but this one’s a clunker. It is dry and slow moving, and I found that I didn’t care about either of the protagonists or their doomed love. Perhaps the weakest aspect is the character of Lister. She is constantly spouting off facts as understood in the early 1800s (she’s supposed to be brilliant) and Latin taglines rendered in the original language. Lister’s conversations with her lover Eliza sound very unnatural.

The author can, and has, written show more better novels. show less