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

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

Amid all the concerts, exhibits, tea parties, balls, walking tours, screen adaptations, and souvenir merch celebrating the 250 th ...

Autumn is a lovely season in England—cue the Keats : “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”--and for Janeites, this fall offers some...

As we approach the last third of this Austen 250 year, the torrent of anniversary-related events shows no sign of abating—especially in...

Those of us who live within striking distance of New York City have another five weeks in which to catch the Morgan Library & Museum’s...

Back in 2008, the Jane Austen Society of North America’s Louisville chapter launched a Jane Austen Festival, held over a July weekend at...

Hard as we Americans try, there are some things we just can’t do as well as the British.   Last month, as blog readers will recall ,...

Fifty years ago, the ardent Janeite collector Alberta Burke--whose husband, Henry, would go on to co-found the Jane Austen Society of...

Jane Austen is delightful. Tea parties are lovely. Raising money for college scholarships is admirable.   So I’m ninety percent happy...

Twenty years, to quote Captain Wentworth, is “a period, indeed”—more than enough time “to change every pore of one’s skin, & every...

While Hampshire, England, is Ground Zero for Austen 250 celebrations, we Americans are doing our best to participate—and this week, the...