Charity and Sylvia: the extraordinary claims of Rachel Hope Cleves • Buttondown

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August 13, 2026

Charity and Sylvia: the extraordinary claims of Rachel Hope Cleves

In early July, a dispute began between two writers; Rachel Hope Cleves, author of Charity and Sylvia; A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America, (2014), and Tillie Walden, author of the graphic novel Charity and Sylvia (2026). Both books are about Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, two women who lived as a couple in Vermont in the early 19th century. Cleves posted an open letter to Bluesky in which she accused Walden of not sufficiently acknowledging Cleves's earlier book, and claimed that Walden's book is an unauthorised adaptation of hers. Walden, via her publisher, has denied that her book is an adaptation of Cleves’s book.

Cleves has repeated her claims several times, and many people have spoken up online to support her. Few, if any of these supporters had read Walden’s book. From the start, I noticed that the smaller number of people who cast doubt Cleves’s claims (including cartoonists Cuyler Keating and Barry Deutsch) mostly had read Walden’s book. So I resolved to read both, and make up my own mind.

I began with a fairly open mind and a determination to look for the textual basis of Cleves’s claim that Walden adapted her book. If it was an adaptation, it would be possible to look at the text and clearly see all the places where Walden had taken a part of Cleves’s work and adapted it.

I read both books, then counted all of Walden’s sources myself, and read & listened to several of Walden’s promo interviews. I do not think Cleves’s claims are supported by evidence; in fact, her claims are much more convoluted & implausible than I realised from my initial reading of her callout posts suggested. There is a troubling disconnect between some of Cleves’s statements and the reality of Walden’s book and interviews.

I’m disappointed that so many people chose to join a social media pile-on against a queer book that they had not read, based on evidence that they had not seen. You would think this would be a known hazard by now.

charity & sylvia vs charity & sylvia

I'll begin with a brief overview of each book, to set the shape of things.

Rachel Hope Cleves's book is a popular history book written by an academic. It's a very accessible read, presenting the known historical evidence about Charity and Sylvia and detailing the sources of that evidence, which consists of diaries, letters, poems and other records. Many, though not all, of these records are archived at the Henry Sheldon Museum in Vermont. The purpose of Cleves's book is to prove that Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake lived together as a married couple; the book goes into detail about many aspects of their lives that show this, such as their shared business and their extended family life. Cleves argues that the evidence she has uncovered shows that Charity and Sylvia's relationship was sexual and romantic, and that their families and communities treated them as a couple. Like most popular nonfiction books, each chapter has extensive endnotes that tell us what sources the chapter is based on.

Tillie Walden's book is a historical graphic novel; it’s primarily based on history but includes some scenes that Walden imagined based on the historical record. The book is in 5 parts, which are mostly comprised of vignettes of one or two pages, told in 3x4 panel grids. Most of Walden's dialogue is (to use her term) fabricated, but many pages include text from historical documents such as diaries, poems or books (including the Bible). The book's endnotes consist of only 4 pages, but point readers to a more extensive online bibliography.

A couple of weeks after Walden's book was released, Cleves put out an open letter accusing Walden of taking the story from her book without credit.

the letter

It's quite long and I would encourage you to read it in full here. I’ll share this helpful summary by ComicsBeat:

In her letter, Cleves writes, “Charity and Sylvia’s story has been so deeply meaningful to so many people—their story has, without exaggeration, saved lives—that I’ve tried to be happy that Walden’s book is making their story more widely known, even if she chose to take my title and my cover design as well as my narrative and my research with only a single sentence of acknowledgement at the end of her book in her notes section. Walden’s illustrations and storytelling are wonderful, as I told her when she reached out to me during the writing process. It would take nothing away from her hard work to be honest about how it is built on my hard work.”

She goes onto say that Walden has repeatedly said in interviews that she based her graphic novel on extensive archival research “without acknowledging that her book is, in fact, based on my book. … She has adapted my book without credit or compensation, and claimed my research for her own. I don’t doubt that Walden spent time...