Learned By Heart
The deeply moving historical novel from the award-winning author of Room
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Learned By Heart
Narrated by:
Shiromi Arserio
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Shiromi Arserio
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By:
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Emma Donoghue
About this listen
The heartbreaking story of the love of two women – Anne Lister, the real-life inspiration behind Gentleman Jack, and her first love, Eliza Raine – from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder.
'A rich and spellbinding 19th-century story of forbidden love' – The Independent
'Donoghue evokes a relationship that is convincing and exquisitely touching' – The Guardian
In 1805, at a boarding school in York, two fourteen-year-old girls first meet.
Eliza Raine, the orphan daughter of an Indian mother, keeps herself apart from the other girls, tired of being picked out for being different. Anne Lister, a gifted troublemaker, is determined to conquer the world, refusing to bow to society’s expectations of what a woman can do.
As they fall in love, the connection they forge will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Full of passion and heartbreak, evocative and wholly unique, Learned by Heart is a beautiful and moving historical novel from acclaimed author Emma Donoghue.
Shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Prize
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Critic reviews
Donoghue's prose is beautiful and beautifully controlled. Simply and without a shred of sentimentality, she evokes a relationship that is convincing and exquisitely touching
The historical setting comes alive in glorious detail . . . over the course of this enthralling novel
Offers a refreshing perspective on a celebrated figure in LGBTQ+ history
A slow burning love story of first love. The girls do not so much discover love as feel they are inventing it
An exquisite coming-of-age love story
Spellbinding . . . A moving portrait of two young women who are willing to risk everything for love
A richly imagined novelistic account of a 19th century love affair
A fascinating . . . love story that's both queer and multiracial
A master of plot
A writer of great vitality and generosity
Set against a vividly realised 1800s England, this spellbinding novel is a stunning character exploration that will move even the steeliest of readers (Armistead Maupin, Attitude)
Donoghue has created a gripping story of the blistering connection between Anne and Eliza Raine . . . This is richly told and built on meticulous research
Emma Donoghue’s writing is superb alchemy (Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife)
Donoghue delights in the intensity of girlhood . . . The book wears its painstaking research like the light shifts the schoolgirls sleep in
Donoghue is a superb stylist – her prose is stirring and tender
She can do everything: be funny, be moving, be unflinching yet sensitive, write beautifully nuanced sentences and utterly gripping stories. She can write powerful historical fiction and be absolutely contemporary. And she’s unable to write a line you don't believe (Joseph O’Connor, author of Star of the Sea)
Emma Donoghue is a genius of compassion. With her, the ethical imagination is always paramount. In our fractured world she brings a great sense of repair to us all. Her stories bind us back together (Colum McCann, internationally bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin)
I loved this and I’m glad that I never saw Gentleman Jack on television. It was enough for me to know that a real life story inspired Learned by Heart without being distracted by comparing Donahue’s fictional interpretation with the ‘real life’ details.
Born in Madras, Eliza Raine is the unwanted illegitimate and orphaned daughter of an English father and an Indian mother, shipped out of the way to England to attend an early eighteenth century girls’ boarding school in York. Fellow pupil Anne Lister is everything that Eliza is not: flamboyant, rebellious, dare devil and fabulously clever and well informed. I loved her torrents of knowledge harvested from her life of reading which so impressed Eliza but infuriated her teachers and earned her the loathing of the other girls.
Donahue is so good at confined worlds and historical settings. Here the microcosm of the school with all its rules and conventions is generously detailed and astonishingly real, and the deep bond which grows between the two 14 year-old girls is portrayed with tenderness Their lovemaking in their isolated sleeping quarters is particularly powerful and yet also delicate.
The girls’ dream of living as husband and wife in Italy once they had escaped the confines of school would obviously never be realised. The inevitable tragic denouement with Eliza later incarcerated in an asylum is portrayed in her deeply affecting diary entries and the letters Eliza writes - but never sends – to Lister, the one true love of her life who had by then callously moved on to new pastures.
The narration is excellent – dramatic when required, and gentle and sensitive for the narrative voice as well as the internal and spoken dialogue.
Very, very real
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ne’er thy like shall see again”
Delicately crafted, researched and painfully painted. I have a solid background of
Their tender love was the beginning of the breaking of Eliza and the making of Lister. Eliza’s character is so beguiling and even it can certainly be said almost as intriguing a person as Lister. The depth of her voice shines through the past by Emma Donoghue’s expert imagination. Left me wanting to know more of Eliza, perhaps with the further uncovering and deciphering of Lister’s diaries will bring forth more of such insights.
“Love kills time, time kills love”
The Shakespearean alignment of As You Like It was a masterful piece of literary comparison.
A beautiful glimpse into the history of Raine & Lister
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Stunning story
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