Sightings 6/14

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

The dating game

Some weeks, it’s not clear what tidbit of gossip or news deserves mention as the biggest story in Jane Austen fandom. Other weeks, a...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 12, 2021

A poet of the ordinary

A poet whose work I didn’t know died the other day. Stephen Dunn was a Pulitzer Prize winner who “specialized in poems about surviving,...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 8, 2021

Vanity plate

So I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting family in Denver. One afternoon, as we drove along the street, I glanced out the window just in...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 7, 2021

Data storage, the Jane Austen way

Anyone whose college papers reside on now-unreadable floppy disks has probably wondered whether the human race is on the brink of an...

Deborah Yaffe

May 13, 2021

Small world

The world of the British aristocracy can seem very small indeed. Witness this month’s auction of items from the estate of the late...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 22, 2021

More name-dropping

The virtual ink had barely dried on my recent blog post about a questionable list of Jane Austen-themed names for baby boys when I...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 4, 2021

Name-dropping

It’s a well-established Janeite practice to name children and pets after Austen characters: while researching my book Among the Janeites,...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 1, 2021

Three weeks, three books (or is it four?)

Jane Austen sightings are like buses: Sometimes, you don’t get one for ages, and sometimes, they come in bunches. These last few weeks...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 22, 2021

Staying safe

Four years ago, I blogged about a rather unusual type of Austen-themed merchandise. Who needs fridge magnets or tote bags when you can...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 18, 2021

On the road with Jane Austen

In her too-short life, Jane Austen traveled very little, barely venturing beyond a few counties in southern and midlands England and...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 4, 2021

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

Mutton and rhubarb

Jane Austen seems to have spent as little time as possible in the kitchen, leaving the cooking to the women she lived with and the...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 30, 2020