April - 2019

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Atlanta, here we come!

Apr 29, 2019

Atlanta, here we come!

For those of us who are impatient to see the latest Jane Austen-inspired TV movie – i.e., for Janeites whose boundless optimism remains undented by frequent disappointment – the makers of Lifetime’s upcoming Pride & Prejudice: Atlanta have just rolled out a teaser ahead of the June 1 air date. The minute-long trailer that dropped last week suggests – dare I say it? Am I tempting fate? – that this version might be kinda fun. As you’ll recall, it’s a contemporary African-Americ

Jane the dragon

Apr 25, 2019

Jane the dragon

Tanya Gold hates Jane Austen. She told us so earlier this week, in a piece published on the media platform UnHerd, whose goal is “to challenge groupthink.” Gold’s piece is part of a series in which writers mark April 23, the feast day of St. George, England’s dragon-slaying patron saint, by choosing “the contemporary tyranny they would put to the sword.” “Jane Austen is not a great writer,” Gold begins, and the indictment proceeds from there: Austen ignores “the great themes”

Back in Winchester. . .

Apr 22, 2019

Back in Winchester. . .

The cathedral city of Winchester, England, seems to have a love-hate relationship with Jane Austen. Or so we might assume from the odd juxtaposition of two recent bits of news. Earlier this year, as blog readers will recall, Winchester Cathedral, where Austen is buried, scrapped plans to erect an expensive statue in her honor, after a torrent of public criticism. Around the same time, however, the cathedral unveiled a new tourism package featuring a “Jane Austen themed tour.”

Julian Assange, Janeite?

Apr 18, 2019

Julian Assange, Janeite?

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a controversial man. Depending on your point of view, he’s either a valiant freedom fighter dedicated to exposing injustice, or a perniciously irresponsible egomaniac who helped elect Donald Trump. (Or both!) What we never knew until now was that he’s also a Janeite. Or so we learned, more or less, from an interview published last week in the Daily Mail. In the story, Australian-British novelist Kathy Lette, perhaps best known as t

Speedy delivery

Apr 15, 2019

Speedy delivery

As regular blog readers know, I have found it difficult to say anything positive about the recent spate of Jane Austen-inspired TV movies. The Hallmark channel has brought us four in the past few years, and they have all been pretty terrible.https://www.deborahyaffe.com/post/never-too-much-jane But that changes right now! Because here’s one good thing you can say about those Austen-inspired TV movies: They get made really fast. It’s been nine months since we learned about PBS

On this day in 1805. . .

Apr 11, 2019

On this day in 1805. . .

Forty-third in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. "It is a period, indeed!” Captain Wentworth exclaims to Anne Elliot, as their long estrangement begins to thaw in Chapter 22 of Persuasion. “Eight years and a half is a period!" A similar spirit of mingled pain and nostalgia seems to have animated Jane Austen in the letter she finished writing to her sister, Cassandra, exactly 214 years ago today (#43 in Deirdre Le Faye’s standard edition of Austen’

Jane Austen's first critic

Apr 8, 2019

Jane Austen's first critic

For Janeites, it’s salt rubbed in a wound: the news that scholars will soon be able to inspect a fascinating trove of letters from an interesting and important Georgian-era woman. . . who isn’t Jane Austen, because her letters are still burnt to a crisp. No, the letters in question were written by Henrietta, Countess of Bessborough – many of them to her lover, Lord Granville, an important nineteenth-century diplomat who served as British ambassador to Russia and France. The

Statues, statues everywhere

Apr 4, 2019

Statues, statues everywhere

Remember back in elementary school, when one kid would get an awesome new toy or a cool pair of shoes, and then everybody had to have their own? Today’s equivalent of Beanie Babies, rainbow looms, and sneakers that light up seems to be Jane Austen statues. In 2017, you’ll recall, Basingstoke commemorated the bicentenary of the death of Jane Austen, who never lived there, by erecting a life-size bronze in the town center. Then, a year later, nearby Chawton, where Austen actual

CliffsNotes for kiddies

Apr 1, 2019

CliffsNotes for kiddies

I am all in favor of introducing young people to great literature, even great literature they are probably too young to fully appreciate. Heck, I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was ten. I doubt I got it all. (For that matter, I still doubt I’ve gotten it all. There’s a lot to get.) I’m also in favor of little jokes about great literature, like the Pride and Prejudice board book for babies, a counting book that runs from “1. . .English village” to “10. . .