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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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Our cousins' street
Many Janeites lack an intimate familiarity with the geography of class in Regency England; we – by which I mean I – can’t tell our Edward...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 10, 2020
Crashing at Henry's place
Few of Jane Austen’s heroines are economically secure, so it’s ironic that her modern-day brand has become inextricably associated with...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 7, 2020
In lieu of a pear tree
It’s a tough year for traditional Christmas celebrations. The eight maids are a-milking in masks. The ten lords are a-leaping six feet...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 3, 2020
Chawton cottage panorama
Pandemic life has made clear, at least to me, that online interactions are no substitute for the in-real-life kind. Still, it’s...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 25, 2020
Window shopping
Even before the coronavirus curtailed recreational travel, the Internet-assisted ogling of Jane Austen-adjacent real estate was one of...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 7, 2020
Beautiful books, glamorous provenance
When valuable editions of Jane Austen’s novels come up for auction, the selling point is usually something about the books themselves:...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 9, 2020
Who's in?
Three years ago, blog readers will recall, a branch of the UK’s Society of Young Publishers sponsored a Jane Austen pub quiz – i.e., a...
Deborah Yaffe
Aug 19, 2020
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 26, 2020
Cash for cream teas and champagne
The havoc that pandemic lockdown has wreaked on an array of arts and cultural organizations is old news by now. Janeites have seen a...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 22, 2020
Happy birthday, JAS
A thousand years ago – or, actually, back in January – the big Janeite news of 2020 was shaping up to be the eightieth anniversary of the...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 8, 2020
Back to the gardens
The world continues to take baby steps toward reopening after quarantine. For Janeites, the latest encouraging sign is that the gardens...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 1, 2020
Chawton cottage on the brink?
Chawton cottage, the house in Hampshire, England, where Jane Austen lived for the last eight years of her life, is the Austen pilgrimage...
Deborah Yaffe
Jun 14, 2020
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