In the English county of Hampshire, some forty miles from the village where Jane Austen was born exactly 250 years ago, a new planned community is rising. Dedicated to environmental sustainability (heat pumps, EV chargers, ample green space) and the principles of new urbanism (walkable layout, community center, nearby schools), the garden village of Welborne sounds like it will be a delightful place to live.   To earn free publicity for this enterprise, the builder of some o

Few pastimes give me as much pleasure as the ogling of unaffordable real estate. It’s a bonus when said real estate has Jane Austen...

My husband was sure there would be no gift shop at 8 College Street , the Winchester house where Jane Austen died, and which opened to...

Jane Austen’s House , the museum also known as Chawton cottage, is the most hallowed spot in Austen fandom: the place Jane Austen lived...

Just last month, I took issue with the travel guru Rick Steves’ questionable claim that “ Bath  is the mecca for Austen devotees.” (That...

“Jane Austen's grave may save a troubled Winchester Cathedral,” the website of Religion News Service proclaimed earlier this year. And...

Hard as we Americans try, there are some things we just can’t do as well as the British.   Last month, as blog readers will recall ,...

Over the past couple of years, my husband and I have become fans of the travel maven Rick Steves , whose lucid and well-organized...

Exactly 250 years ago, England saw the birth of a great artist whose innovations forever changed our culture.   I speak, of course, of...

The material traces of Jane Austen’s life are so scarce that devoted Janeites—or people seeking to profit off Janeite devotion--tend to...

If you missed the Autumn Walking Festival in Alton, England , next door to the Hampshire village where Jane Austen spent the last eight...

Jane Austen was a country girl, raised in a rural enclave of Hampshire, England, where the houses she lived in and the churches she...