Sightings 11/14

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

Two down. . .

For the past month, I have attempted to cultivate an air of studied indifference to the story of the Priceless Fivers – the four British...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 5, 2017

Jane Austen, citizen of the world

Jane Austen is often seen as quintessentially English, in her portraits of a rural middle-class life dominated by the gentry and the...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 22, 2016

I spoke too soon!

Just yesterday, I was expressing skepticism about whether the famous, allegedly valuable Jane Austen £5 notes would turn up any time...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 16, 2016

Golden Tickets on the loose

It’s been nearly two weeks already, but the British press cannot get enough of the Jane-Austen-meets-Roald-Dahl story of the specially...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 15, 2016

Oompa-Loompa

Someday very soon, a lucky Brit will turn a crisp new £5 note to the light, just so, and something unexpected will appear: A tiny...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 5, 2016

Cooking with Jane

Here’s another item to add to the list of contemporary cultural phenomena that have now been given a Jane Austen twist: TV reality...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 2, 2016

Janeite trick-or-treating

In her novels and letters, Jane Austen does not mention Halloween, whose modern-day form – costumes, trick-or-treating, ghouls, pumpkins...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 30, 2016

Curricular matters

Once again, Jane Austen has been roped into something that she might better be left out of. Judging from my daily Austen Google alert,...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 16, 2016

Jane Austen, college recruiter

Over the past few years, as I’ve sent one child off to college and begun preparing another to follow, I’ve gotten to know a little bit...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 12, 2016

JA and QE

Last year, I blogged about a ship named for Jane Austen on which well-heeled passengers could cruise along Europe’s scenic rivers. And...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 5, 2016

Augmented Janeite reality

Tumblr is a social media platform that I simply do not understand, at least not yet. Luckily, I have a teenage daughter. And she sends me...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 25, 2016

More Austen networking

About fourteen months ago, as loyal readers may remember, I blogged about an online effort to launch something called the Jane Austen...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 12, 2016