Janeites/Anti-Janeites

Blog

Reading Austen in high places

A few months ago, I noted that the British royal family appears to include a critical mass of women who are crazy about Jane Austen. (Or...

She plays well at the palace

Seven years ago, we learned that Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – aka the wife of Prince Charles and future queen consort of England – is a...

Love means never having to say you're sorry

When I was growing up in 1970s and -80s heartland America, my taste for classic literature, including Jane Austen, made me . . . well, I...

Jane Austen, elixir of youth?

Last year, an Australian octogenarian named Ruth Wilson made headlines when she completed a doctoral degree on Jane Austen and the...

One of Us

For a long time, we have known that at least one* Janeite lives barely a heartbeat away from the British throne: Seven years ago,...

A newly planted Austen society

Like a Janeite version of Johnny Appleseed, the British-Pakistani journalist and writer Laaleen Sukhera seems to be making a habit of...

CryptoJane

Back in 2013, when the Bank of England announced that Jane Austen would be the face of the £10 note, little did we know that less than a...

Janeite on a sled

The unholy spectacle of a Russian coach berating a fifteen-year-old figure skater after an epic public fail shadowed by a doping scandal...

With friends like these. . .

For the most part, I love my fellow Janeites. By and large, we are a smart, thoughtful bunch who, whatever our political, temperamental,...

Raising Jane(ites)

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 passes on

Two months ago, I noted a Janeite milestone: the one hundredth birthday of Helen Lefroy, a dedicated Janeite with a familial link to Jane...

A poet of the ordinary

A poet whose work I didn’t know died the other day. Stephen Dunn was a Pulitzer Prize winner who “specialized in poems about surviving,...