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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
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AKA
Did Jane Austen want the world to know her name? It’s a complicated question. In January 1796, in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, the...
Deborah Yaffe
Aug 24, 2020
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Ruins
Tom Lefroy’s house is crumbling away. To Janeites, this may seem poetic justice for the young Irishman who danced and flirted with the...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 27, 2020
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On this day in 1817. . .
Fifty-fifth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. I recently finished reading my eighth biography of Jane...
Deborah Yaffe
May 28, 2020
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Restraint
I like to think that I do not “rant” about Jane Austen-related error. I merely point it out, in a snarky yet restrained way. At times, it...
Deborah Yaffe
Mar 23, 2020
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On this day in 1817. . .
Fifty-second in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. It’s no secret that Jane Austen held a jaundiced view of the...
Deborah Yaffe
Feb 20, 2020
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On this day in 1798. . .
Fiftieth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. The holiday season can be difficult for those of us who find...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 26, 2019
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On this day in 1798. . .
Forty-ninth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. For devotees of the Tom-Lefroy-was-the-love-of-Jane-Austen’s...
Deborah Yaffe
Nov 18, 2019
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Strange bedfellows
By now, we’ve gotten used to seeing Jane Austen in rather. . . um . . . interesting company. She’s been paired with zombies and sea...
Deborah Yaffe
Nov 4, 2019
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On this day in 1808. . .
Forty-eighth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. When Jane Austen sat down to write a letter to her sister,...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 24, 2019
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Austen's pewter
Jane Austen, her brother Henry would have us believe, didn’t care about making money. “She became an authoress entirely from taste and...
Deborah Yaffe
Aug 12, 2019
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Still reading
The fascinating Reading with Austen project, a digital recreation of Edward Austen Knight’s library at Godmersham Park in Kent, got some...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 25, 2019
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On this day in 1816. . .
Forty-sixth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Jane Austen’s brothers were a reproductively prolific lot, at...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 15, 2019
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