Sightings 13/14

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

Jane Austen (dis)content

Because she is famous and popular, Jane Austen has become a handy peg on which to hang just about anything, from advice for the dateless...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 24, 2015

Books as mirrors

Ianthe Broome, the protagonist of Barbara Pym’s 1982 novel An Unsuitable Attachment, is a quiet, self-effacing woman. "She saw herself...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 14, 2015

Jane Austen meets Spinal Tap

Readers of my book Among the Janeites will recall that one of its protagonists, English professor Devoney Looser, has a not-so-secret...

Deborah Yaffe

May 13, 2015

My suspicious mind. . .

Here we have a self-consciously literate Craigslist personal ad from a Portland man who says he’s a Jane Austen fan.* He’s looking for...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 26, 2015

Department of weird

We Janeites like to say that our favorite author is everywhere, but some days you just can’t believe where she turns up. An informative...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 9, 2015

Unbelievable Austen truths

You may think that Jane Austen’s father was George Austen, a clergyman who headed a parish in rural England. But apparently you would be...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 15, 2015

Games Janeites play

It hasn’t quite been Ten Days that Rocked the Jane Austen World, but this past week or so has brought us several memorable Janeite teapot...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 24, 2014

Jane votes yes

We Janeites are used to seeing Our Author co-opted by partisans across the politico-cultural spectrum: depending on who’s talking, she’s...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 14, 2014

Another Jane Austen sighting

My Jane Austen Google alert this weekend pointed me to this alluring yet unsatisfactory story in the Halstead Gazette, which covers the...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 7, 2014

Looking for love Down Under

And you thought Jane Austen was dead. But no – she’s on the prowl for a mate, or at least a date. And she’s “an optimistic family...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 1, 2014

JA makes the cut

A flurry of excitement in the British press over the release of new curricular guidelines for the UK’s English literature exams for high...

Deborah Yaffe

May 28, 2014

Underwater Austen

Last week, the U.S. Navy and its tech partner announced plans to outfit submarines with a brand-new secure e-book reader called the NeRD...

Deborah Yaffe

May 14, 2014