Many happy returns
The return of spring brings many pleasures. Flowers! Baby birds! And, of course, a new Jane Austen bobblehead! Back in 2020, the North...
top of page
Journalist and author
Blog
Search
Deborah Yaffe
- Dec 2, 2021
Jane and the feathered friend
Jane Austen assuredly never saw a penguin: According to the Zoological Society of London, it wasn’t until 1865, nearly fifty years after...
Deborah Yaffe
- Aug 2, 2021
Another side of Austen
Jane Austen’s silhouette – or, at least, a silhouette that has come to be identified with her – is ubiquitous. Despite its uncertain...
Deborah Yaffe
- Apr 8, 2021
All the Janes
Janeites have a curious affinity for images of Our Author – even though, as I’ve noted before, we’ll never really know what she looked...
Deborah Yaffe
- May 31, 2020
Jane Austen's new look
These days, the internet is awash in posts purporting to explain why social distancing in the Time of Coronavirus is amusingly or...
Deborah Yaffe
- Apr 3, 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...
Deborah Yaffe
- Feb 28, 2019
Enough already
Is it possible to have too much Jane Austen? Apparently, the good citizens of Winchester, England, think it is. Last fall, Winchester...
Deborah Yaffe
- Jan 28, 2019
The mysterious Rice portrait, again
One of the Janeite world’s most enduring mysteries/controversies concerns a charming eighteenth-century oil painting of a young girl in a...
Deborah Yaffe
- Dec 20, 2018
An embarrassment of Austen statues
Eighteen months ago, not a single statue of Jane Austen was on public display anywhere in the world. And now, it appears, we will soon...
Deborah Yaffe
- Jun 20, 2018
A statue for Chawton
The Hampshire village of Chawton is the mecca of the Janeite faith: the community where Austen spent the last eight years of her life,...
Deborah Yaffe
- Jul 30, 2017
Camera-ready
Among the many, many activities taking place on the bicentennial of Jane Austen’s death earlier this month was the unveiling of a new...
Deborah Yaffe
- Jun 4, 2017
Déjà vu all over again
I love the British press. When it comes to Jane Austen, they can manufacture a story out of the thinnest gossamer. Even recycled...
bottom of page