![]() ![]() It gives a fascinating insight into the mind of a nineteenth-century lesbian, whose only means of self-expression was male identification. To the modern reader, with a more enlightened view of gender and sexuality, The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland is an intriguing autobiography-in-drag. By recreating herself as a tall, handsome man, Linton was able to articulate passionate feelings for women without risking exposure as an “invert”. ![]() Linton’s biographer, George Layard, described it as an “unfortunate moment” when Linton “conceived the idea of reversing her own sex and that of many of her characters”, although admits “when she was born, a boy was due in the family, and it was only the top-coating that miscarried.” Mrs Campbell Praed also described Linton as a “curious mixture. She told her publisher, George Bentley: “I have put my very Soul, my life into these pages.” In later life, she said it as “an outpour no one hears me make by word of mouth, a confession of sorrow, suffering, trial, and determination not to be beaten, which few suspect is the underlying truth of my life.” In this astonishing work of literary transvestism, Linton adopts a male persona in order to recount her loss of faith at an early age, her sexual relationships with other women, and her disastrous marriage to the engraver William Linton. Friends of Eliza Lynn Linton were appalled at how much personal information she divulged in The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland (1885). ![]()
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