Does the world need another Jane Austen podcast? Color me skeptical.   A rummage through Google and memory turned up eighteen non-fiction examples of the genre, and I doubt I found them all. There are podcasts sponsored by mainline Austen organizations, including Chawton House , Jane Austen’s House , and the Jane Austen Society of North America . There are podcasts devoted to excavating historical context , or dissecting Austen adaptations , or both . There are podcasts hoste

British screenwriter Andrew Davies turned eighty-nine last month, but he’s not slowing down. Quite the reverse.   Over the past six weeks, Davies—the author of four well-known TV adaptations of Austen novels, including the BBC’s iconic 1995 Pride and Prejudice -- has begun talking publicly about his next projects. Apparently, he’s working on three new Austen spinoffs—and hoo boy, they sound like doozies. Next to this stuff, Mr. Darcy’s wet shirt practically qualifies as abje

In life, Jane Austen’s royal connections were minimal. As Janeites will remember, the Prince Regent, later George IV, was a fan of her work. In 1815, a chance encounter scored Austen a private tour of the PR’s London residence, hosted by his librarian, and along the way, she received offer-you-can’t-refuse “permission” to dedicate Emma  to the royal personage. She complied. And that was the sum total of her close encounters with crowned heads.   Posthumously, however, Austen

No selfie sticks were anywhere in sight.   On an overcast afternoon last week, Winchester Cathedral unveiled a life-size bronze statue of Jane Austen in its Inner Close, bringing an end to seven years of hilariously overblown controversy .   The cathedral filmed the event, and several people in the audience raised their cellphones to record it. But predictions that installing an Austen statue would turn the tranquil site into a “Disneyland-on-Itchen” overrun by hordes of se

Jane Austen’s influence on Bridgerton  is old news. If the whole feisty-Regency-heroines-in-marriage-plots thing didn’t give it away,...

No one knows how long we’ll have to wait to see the newest screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice , the buzzy Netflix version now filming in the UK. But the latest audio version of the novel, a four-and-a-half-hour adaptation with a full cast, dropped last month, and Audible celebrated by co-hosting a New York City bash—or, rather, a “ Luxe Pride and Prejudice Party . ”   The party— naturally , it was “an immersive experience”—was held at a bar/restaurant with Victorian

Jane Austen’s views on the international tragedies of her time are mostly unknown, except when they are brutally unsentimental. “How...

Twenty years ago, Matthew Macfadyen’s Mr. Darcy strolled out of the morning mist to a swelling strings-and-piano accompaniment and sent...

One hundred and fourth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   Jane Austen, it seems, took a rather jaundiced...