Deborah YaffeApr 28, 2022Under the floorboardsWhen I was a little girl, my favorite toy was my dollhouse. I liked setting up tiny roomscapes filled with detailed, perfectly manageable...
Deborah YaffeMar 10, 2022Eunice the MenaceLast month, a storm named Eunice ravaged large swathes of Europe. In the UK, which was hit especially hard, three people were killed,...
Deborah YaffeOct 14, 2021Listening in on Chawton HouseLast summer, the pandemic programmers of Chawton House, the Elizabethan manor once owned by Jane Austen’s brother Edward, revived the...
Deborah YaffeSep 30, 2021Autumn footstepsWandering around the English countryside in early autumn while talking about literature: sounds idyllic, no? And so I sighed enviously as...
Deborah YaffeApr 8, 2021All the JanesJaneites have a curious affinity for images of Our Author – even though, as I’ve noted before, we’ll never really know what she looked...
Deborah YaffeApr 5, 2021Austenian medical mysteryJane Austen’s death is tragic, because she died at only forty-one, at the height of her artistic powers. It’s also mysterious – the...
Deborah YaffeJan 7, 2021Recovering a literary Holy GrailIt’s been more than three years since a trio of passionate Janeites formed the Godmersham Lost Sheep Society (GLOSS), an organization...
Deborah YaffeDec 31, 2020Goodbye at last, 2020A year ago, I confidently predicted a 2020 filled with the usual array of Austen events: “Teas, balls, fairs, festivals, conferences,...
Deborah YaffeSep 9, 2020Beautiful books, glamorous provenanceWhen valuable editions of Jane Austen’s novels come up for auction, the selling point is usually something about the books themselves:...
Deborah YaffeAug 19, 2020Who's in?Three years ago, blog readers will recall, a branch of the UK’s Society of Young Publishers sponsored a Jane Austen pub quiz – i.e., a...
Deborah YaffeJul 8, 2020Happy birthday, JASA thousand years ago – or, actually, back in January – the big Janeite news of 2020 was shaping up to be the eightieth anniversary of the...
Deborah YaffeJul 1, 2020Back to the gardensThe world continues to take baby steps toward reopening after quarantine. For Janeites, the latest encouraging sign is that the gardens...