top of page
Journalist and author
The Line of Thought
. . . to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.
--Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
Search
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
Apr 8, 2021
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
May 31, 2020
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
Apr 3, 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
Feb 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
Jan 28, 2019
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
Dec 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
Jun 20, 2018
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
Jul 30, 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...
Deborah Yaffe
Jun 4, 2017
Bronzing Austen
Nobody knows what Jane Austen looked like. Nobody will ever know what Jane Austen looked like. So, naturally, we’ll soon have a new image...
Deborah Yaffe
Jan 23, 2017
Color to win
When I was ten years old, or thereabouts, I won a coloring contest sponsored by the local bus company. Since my artistic ability was –...
Deborah Yaffe
Mar 23, 2016
Austen in profile
The other day, I ran across this attractive Austen-themed craft idea, and it got me thinking about that silhouette. Now owned by the...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 5, 2014
bottom of page