Sightings 7/14

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

Mr. Darcy, harasser?

Jane Austen has been used and abused in so many different ways by now, pressed into service to sell everything from perfume to romance...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 5, 2020

Jane talks back

Jane Austen lived a very long time ago, in a world whose gender roles, social conditions, and technological context are largely alien to...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 29, 2020

The Jane Austen Guide to Quarantine

For many of us, coronavirus quarantine has proved to be the perfect moment to reread Jane Austen. (Although, really, is there ever a bad...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 21, 2020

Oh, to be in Paris

For some unaccountable reason, lately I find myself fantasizing longingly about travel to exotic destinations. (Not even that exotic! The...

Deborah Yaffe

May 18, 2020

Jane in the time of coronavirus

For Austen fans everywhere, it’s a burning question: WWJD (What Would Jane Do) in the time of coronavirus quarantine? Luckily, we now...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 25, 2020

Jane's car

Last December, the owner of a very trendy new car got into a minor accident on an English roadway. And thus we learned some exciting...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 27, 2020

Meg, Jo, Elinor, Marianne

Like all American girls, I loved Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and when I shared it with my daughter many years after my first...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 9, 2020

Still missing

Today’s Jane Austen happening is what hasn’t happened yet: Almost exactly three years after an artist engraved tiny portraits of Jane...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 19, 2019

Fruitcake

As the holidays approach, you may be bracing for the arrival of that winter perennial, the fruitcake -- baked months earlier, soaked in...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 9, 2019

Jane Austen's side hustle

These days, it takes a lot for an instance of Austenian inaccuracy to surprise me. I hardly turn a hair when quotes from Austen screen...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 5, 2019

Too darn hot

The dog days of summer are approaching, and perhaps that’s why the amount of Stupid Jane Austen Stuff coming my way seems to have ramped...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 30, 2019

Weird Austen

Sometimes, the Jane Austen mentions you find on the internet are seriously stupid. Other times, they’re just seriously weird. This month,...

Deborah Yaffe

May 29, 2019