Places 3/17

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

Woman of Winchester

Dust off those selfie sticks, Janeites: Winchester Cathedral is moving ahead with its controversial plan to place a statue of Jane Austen...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 1, 2024

A stitch in time

The complaints about Winchester Cathedral’s proposed Jane Austen statue have quieted down lately, or so I conclude from the silence of my...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 25, 2024

Endangered Dolphin, Part II

The moral seems clear: Bonnets are no match for the brutal imperatives of capitalism. It’s been five months since the owners of a...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 15, 2024

Making it up as you go along

I love the way the internet just makes stuff up. Kidding! I hate the way the internet just makes stuff up—not least when the stuff it...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 24, 2024

Endangered Dolphin

In December 1793, during a visit to cousins in the Hampshire city of Southampton, the soon-to-turn-eighteen-year-old Jane Austen danced...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 20, 2024

Wondering about Alice

Chawton House, the Elizabethan mansion once owned by Jane Austen’s older brother Edward, has worked hard to transform itself from a...

Deborah Yaffe

May 27, 2024

Embroidering Chawton

The last time I completed a significant piece of needlework (see below) was during the early months of pandemic quarantine, when being...

Deborah Yaffe

May 2, 2024

Not In Jane's Backyard, Part II

Jane Austen died without finishing Sanditon , her novel about a developer trying to turn a sleepy small town into a bustling seaside...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 15, 2024

Statue wars

The controversy over Winchester Cathedral’s proposed Jane Austen statue is truly the gift that keeps on giving, at least for those of us...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 4, 2024

Questionable inspiration?

It’s always sad when a fire severely damages a family home, and even more so when the building itself has historic or architectural...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 25, 2024

Headline magic

If you read the UK media, you might be forgiven for thinking that no story about British real estate is complete without a link to Jane...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 8, 2024

The sounds of Jane Austen Christmas

Emma Woodhouse’s Christmas holiday is not a good one, as readers of Emma will recall: On Christmas Eve, she fends off Mr. Elton’s...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 21, 2023