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 YaffeJul 5, 2020The Watsons, rebornAmong the Janeite casualties of pandemic lockdown was the planned West End production of The Watsons, Laura Wade’s much-praised...
Deborah YaffeMay 6, 2020On and offFor those of us who love our Jane Austen adaptations, the coronavirus quarantine has been the best of times and the worst of times. The...
Deborah YaffeJan 2, 2020Eighty years onThe year that began yesterday will not bring us any important Jane Austen anniversaries: The bicentenaries of her death and of the...
Deborah YaffeJun 26, 2019Fragments of news, news about fragmentsThe Janeite word of the moment, it would appear, is “fragment.” * Last week, Jane Austen’s House Museum launched an urgent appeal for...
Deborah YaffeMar 14, 2018The Watsons on stageThe Watsons -- the novel Jane Austen began, probably in 1804, but never finished -- is a fascinating fragment. It’s bleak and wintry,...
Deborah YaffeJun 8, 2014The complete Hubback, at lastGreat news for aficionados of Jane Austen fan fiction: the long-inaccessible third volume of The Younger Sister, by Austen’s niece...
Deborah YaffeMar 3, 2014Postscript to "The Watsons in Winter": Bless the Midwest!The library gods are smiling upon us Janeites. As I reported in my recently completed Watsons in Winter blog series, Jane Austen’s...
Deborah YaffeFeb 13, 2014Wrapping up The Watsons in Winter“Each of us has a private Austen,” Karen Joy Fowler writes at the beginning of The Jane Austen Book Club, her 2004 novel about how...
Deborah YaffeFeb 10, 2014The Watsons in Winter: Jennifer Ready BettiolSome Jane Austen fanfiction is produced by professional writers with one eye on a potentially profitable market. But much Austen...
Deborah YaffeFeb 6, 2014The Watsons in Winter: Eucharista WardJane Austen’s life was steeped in religion. As the daughter of an Anglican clergyman, she almost certainly believed in God, attended...
Deborah YaffeFeb 3, 2014The Watsons in Winter: Helen BakerNews flash: it’s hard to write like Jane Austen. I don’t just mean that it’s hard to emulate Austen’s diamond-bright sentences, with...