Letters 4/11

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

On this day in 1811. . .

Seventy-sixth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Jane Austen’s novels famously contain few detailed...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 6, 2022

On this day in 1801. . .

Seventy-fifth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. How autobiographical is Jane Austen’s writing? Impossible...

Deborah Yaffe

May 12, 2022

On this day in 1805. . .

Seventy-fourth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Jane Leigh-Perrot, who was married to the older brother of...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 21, 2022

On this day in 1817. . .

Seventy-third in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters The letter that Jane Austen wrote to her 11-year-old niece...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 14, 2022

Women's letters, women's lives

Texts and emails have much to recommend them, but it’s hard not to wonder how much their prevalence will handicap future biographers....

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 24, 2022

On this day in 1813. . .

Seventy-second in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Exactly 209 years ago today, Jane Austen wrote a letter...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 17, 2022

On this day in 1801. . .

Seventy-first in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Moving out of one house and into another is a stressful,...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 3, 2022

Saved!

Genuinely good news – a commodity that’s been in short supply this past year – came our way earlier this month, with the announcement...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 30, 2021

On this day in 1814. . .

Seventieth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. The author of Pride and Prejudice may have been an anonymous...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 6, 2021

On this day in 1798. . .

Sixty-ninth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. Jane Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, who wrote...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 25, 2021

On this day in 1815. . .

Sixty-eighth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. Last month, I noted that Jane Austen’s account of a...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 18, 2021

On this day in 1813. . .

Sixty-seventh in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. Nostalgia for Jane Austen’s era has always struck me as...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 16, 2021