Places 2/15

The Line of Thought

. . . to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.

--Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 15

Endangered Dolphin, Part II

The moral seems clear: Bonnets are no match for the brutal imperatives of capitalism. It’s been five months since the owners of a failing...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 24

Making it up as you go along

I love the way the internet just makes stuff up. Kidding! I hate the way the internet just makes stuff up—not least when the stuff it...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 20

Endangered Dolphin

In December 1793, during a visit to cousins in the Hampshire city of Southampton, the soon-to-turn-eighteen-year-old Jane Austen danced...

Deborah Yaffe

May 27

Wondering about Alice

Chawton House, the Elizabethan mansion once owned by Jane Austen’s older brother Edward, has worked hard to transform itself from a...

Deborah Yaffe

May 2

Embroidering Chawton

The last time I completed a significant piece of needlework (see below) was during the early months of pandemic quarantine, when being...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 4

Statue wars

The controversy over Winchester Cathedral’s proposed Jane Austen statue is truly the gift that keeps on giving, at least for those of us...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 25

Questionable inspiration?

It’s always sad when a fire severely damages a family home, and even more so when the building itself has historic or architectural...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 8

Headline magic

If you read the UK media, you might be forgiven for thinking that no story about British real estate is complete without a link to Jane...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 21, 2023

The sounds of Jane Austen Christmas

Emma Woodhouse’s Christmas holiday is not a good one, as readers of Emma will recall: On Christmas Eve, she fends off Mr. Elton’s...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 18, 2023

AirbnJA

Janeites love making pilgrimages to the places where Jane Austen—or at least her relatives--once lived, worked, or ate. But for some...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 14, 2023

Bronzing Jane, again

Exactly five years ago, Winchester Cathedral proposed erecting a statue of Jane Austen in the Cathedral Close, in tribute to the most...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 2, 2023

Treasure chest

Chawton House, the Elizabethan mansion in Hampshire once owned by Jane Austen’s brother Edward, is one of the treasures of the Janeite...