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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
Feb 6
Treasure trove
Jane Austen’s travelling writing desk , often described as the eighteenth-century equivalent of a laptop, is usually on display at the...
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Deborah Yaffe
Feb 3
Branding exercise
A few weeks ago, I ran across a 2011 article in which the wonderful Scottish novelist Ali Smith explained why she seldom grants...
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Deborah Yaffe
Jan 9
On this day in 1799. . .
Ninety-eighth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.  Exactly 226 years ago today, the 23-year-old Jane Austen...
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Deborah Yaffe
Dec 2, 2024
On this day in 1798. . .
Ninety-seventh in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.  Mary Lloyd was a friend of Jane and Cassandra Austen...
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Deborah Yaffe
Nov 18, 2024
Thriller
Are you feeling sad that you won’t be able to join the Jane Austen 250th Birthday festivities in England next year? Fear not! You can...
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Deborah Yaffe
Nov 7, 2024
On this day in 1813. . .
Ninety-seventh in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.  What tribute does a friend owe to a published author?...
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Deborah Yaffe
Oct 10, 2024
Plain and ornamental
In his 1870 Memoir of Jane Austen , the author’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, reports that his famous aunt “was successful in...
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Deborah Yaffe
Oct 7, 2024
On this day in 1808. . .
Ninety-sixth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Janeites do not always take Jane Austen at her word when it...
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Deborah Yaffe
Jul 18, 2024
What remains
Two hundred and seven years ago today, Jane Austen died in Winchester, England, at the age of forty-one. It’s easy to forget how...
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Deborah Yaffe
May 20, 2024
On this day in 1813. . .
Ninety-fourth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Only about two years of Jane Austen’s childhood were spent...
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Deborah Yaffe
Jan 25, 2024
On this day in 1801. . .
Ninety-first in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. A curious—and curiously contemporary--passage appears in the...
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Deborah Yaffe
Oct 16, 2023
On this day in 1808. . .
Eighty-ninth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Novelists are a ruthless bunch. They find grist for their...
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