In Sense and Sensibility, as Janeites will recall, Elinor Dashwood and her rival, Lucy Steele, spend a tense evening sparring genteelly over their mutual love interest while jointly completing a filigreed basket for a spoiled toddler. Imagine how hostile the exchange could have become if the dueling damsels had been constructing an entire Regency wardrobe. This fantasy crossed my mind as I examined the stunning photos of an art exhibition now on display at Firle Place, the Su

Unlike so many novelists of the Victorian period, Jane Austen didn’t publish her books in serial form. The first readers of, say, David Copperfield or Middlemarch had to wait months to learn the ultimate fate of their favorite characters, but Pride and Prejudice was bingeable from the beginning. If you prefer to take your Austen with a dose of Victorian delayed gratification, however, now’s your chance: Lifeline Theatre, a Chicago company that specializes in adaptations of cl

Sixty-sixth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. We’ve all got those relatives – the ones we know about but have never met, or have perhaps been avoiding. Apparently, Jane Austen had them too, judging from the letter she began writing to her sister, Cassandra, exactly 207 years ago today (#105 in Deirdre Le Faye’s standard edition of Austen’s correspondence). Jane was in London, visiting the fourth Austen brother, Henry, who had spent the day at the

Long ago, I danced at a JASNA ball with a twelve-year-old girl who, when I asked if she was a Janeite, told me that she had “been raised a Janeite.” (Her mother was Austen scholar Janine Barchas, of the University of Texas at Austin.) Now, another of those Janeites-from-the-cradle is making her mark, with an entertaining online book exhibit that traces approaches to Pride and Prejudice through multiple editions and appropriations of the novel. Emma Brodey – a Yale University

As we Pride and Prejudice readers know, Mr. Darcy’s responsible stewardship of his beautiful grounds at Pemberley is an important factor in Elizabeth Bennet’s crucial change of mind about his suitability as a husband. Alas, however, it seems that estate management is easier in fiction than in reality, at least in a reality scarred by climate change. Two years ago, flooding following torrential rains caused £250,000 (about $346,000) of damage to the grounds of Lyme Park, the C

It was Christmas in July for those of us who spend our days looking for pop-culture recognition of Jane Austen’s genius: * July 14: Netflix released a female-action-hero movie called Gunpowder Milkshake, which features a group of women known as “the librarians” who manage a “bookish armory, where the volumes contain handguns of various sizes and the larger-caliber weapons have monikers like ‘Jane Austen,’ ‘Virginia Woolf’ and ‘Charlotte Bronte,’ ” John Anderson wrote in a Wal

A New York bridal-gown designer wants to give away made-to-order, Jane Austen-inspired couture dresses. No one’s interested, I assume. As if. The designer, Jennyvi Dizon, is a newly minted member of the Jane Austen Society of North America who will attend her first JASNA Annual General Meeting in Chicago in October. The conference theme is “Jane Austen in the Arts,” and Dizon has decided to mark the occasion by staging a “Jane Austen photo shoot” featuring JASNA members model

Jane Austen apparently liked to eat – “You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me,” she wrote to her sister in June 1808 -- but most of the cooking in the country cottage where she spent the last eight years of her life was done by the household’s other female residents, especially the sisters’ old friend Martha Lloyd. For decades, Janeites have known that Lloyd compiled her recipes for everything from toasted cheese to table varnish into a so-called “hou

Jane Austen’s silhouette – or, at least, a silhouette that has come to be identified with her – is ubiquitous. Despite its uncertain provenance, the image, owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London, is a staple of Austen-themed mugs, tote bags, magnets, and even cookware. But now the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation has commissioned a new Austen silhouette, this one prepared by a “celebrity silhouette artist” who based his work on “a forensically accurate wax work recon