Interrogating an interrogation
Among my many Janeite pet peeves is the caricaturing of Austen fans as prudish ultraconservatives who stick their fingers in their ears...
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Journalist and author
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
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Deborah Yaffe
Apr 26, 2021
Upstairs, downstairs
When Keira Knightley was cast as Elizabeth Bennet in the 2005 feature film of Pride and Prejudice, she worried that her performance would...
Deborah Yaffe
Mar 18, 2021
Jane Austen wrote here?
If you spend a lot of time online, it can sometimes seem that every house for sale in England has a tangential Jane Austen connection...
Deborah Yaffe
Feb 22, 2021
Three weeks, three books (or is it four?)
Jane Austen sightings are like buses: Sometimes, you don’t get one for ages, and sometimes, they come in bunches. These last few weeks...
Deborah Yaffe
Jan 7, 2021
Recovering a literary Holy Grail
It’s been more than three years since a trio of passionate Janeites formed the Godmersham Lost Sheep Society (GLOSS), an organization...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 31, 2020
Goodbye at last, 2020
A year ago, I confidently predicted a 2020 filled with the usual array of Austen events: “Teas, balls, fairs, festivals, conferences,...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 10, 2020
Our cousins' street
Many Janeites lack an intimate familiarity with the geography of class in Regency England; we – by which I mean I – can’t tell our Edward...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 7, 2020
Crashing at Henry's place
Few of Jane Austen’s heroines are economically secure, so it’s ironic that her modern-day brand has become inextricably associated with...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 3, 2020
In lieu of a pear tree
It’s a tough year for traditional Christmas celebrations. The eight maids are a-milking in masks. The ten lords are a-leaping six feet...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 25, 2020
Chawton cottage panorama
Pandemic life has made clear, at least to me, that online interactions are no substitute for the in-real-life kind. Still, it’s...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 7, 2020
Window shopping
Even before the coronavirus curtailed recreational travel, the Internet-assisted ogling of Jane Austen-adjacent real estate was one of...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 9, 2020
Beautiful books, glamorous provenance
When valuable editions of Jane Austen’s novels come up for auction, the selling point is usually something about the books themselves:...
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