Work 11/16

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

Austen en français

Say what you will of Isabelle de Montolieu: The woman had chutzpah. In 1816, de Montolieu, a successful Swiss novelist, published her...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 6, 2017

Context is everything

Once or twice in the past, I have mentioned my aversion to lists of Jane Austen quotes – or mugs with Jane Austen quotes, or, indeed, any...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 27, 2017

Distinguishing marks

Back in my college days, when I was a pedantically obsessive copy editor on the student newspaper, a friend claimed to have overheard me...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 20, 2017

More pictures of Fanny

Earlier this month, Janeites were delighted when the Folio Society publishers and the House of Illustration, a London gallery devoted to...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 16, 2017

Pictures of Fanny

Those of us who first encountered Jane Austen on the page of a book without illustrations -- rather than on a movie screen -- probably...

Deborah Yaffe

Feb 2, 2017

Jane Austen, citizen of the world (Part II)

These days, the quintessentially English Jane Austen is, as I recently found occasion to note, a citizen of the world. And she seems to...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 12, 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

Giving thanks

In her fiction, Jane Austen was acutely aware that the duty of gratitude can sometimes be weaponized: think of Sir Thomas Bertram...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 24, 2016

The Austen Catch-Up Project: Jocelyn Harris

When Jane Austen described her work as “the little bit (two inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 23, 2016

The Austen Catch-Up Project: Sarah Emsley

Perhaps because Jane Austen’s writing feels so fresh and modern, it’s tempting to imagine her as a contemporary who shares our...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 28, 2016

That Hamilton woman

Jane Austen was only seven when the American War of Independence ended, and as far as I know she is not on record either pro or con –...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 3, 2016

Who you callin' unpublished?

So I’ve finally seen Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship, the much-heralded film adaptation of Lady Susan. (I enjoyed it, if perhaps not...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 1, 2016