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Journalist and author
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
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On this day in 1801. . .
Eighty-second in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. In January 1801, the twenty-five-year-old Jane Austen was...
Deborah Yaffe
Jan 9, 2023
A Janeite's Janeite passes on
Edith Lank, who died on New Year’s Day at the age of ninety-six, was a Janeite’s Janeite. She read and reread Austen’s novels; began...
Deborah Yaffe
Jan 5, 2023
Better luck this time?
Nearly five years ago, a Canadian lawyer named Tara Rout floated the notion of buying Luckington Court, the UK mansion that played...
Deborah Yaffe
Jan 2, 2023
Dinner time
A common Janeite fantasy goes like this: You meet Jane Austen. Naturally, she finds you interesting and delightful. You get her take on,...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 29, 2022
Unintimidated
Just in case all the usual reasons to admire Ukrainians -- courage, grit, unshakeable commitment to democracy – aren’t enough for you,...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 26, 2022
Father knows best
Although Jane Austen’s novels never commanded huge print runs – the biggest, for Emma, totaled only two thousand copies -- Austen first...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 22, 2022
Sugarplums
As Christmas approaches, the internet has been filling our Janeite stockings with tidbits of Austen-related news: --Ahoy, there: Last...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 19, 2022
High-camp Jane Austen
After a year that brought not one but two same-sex updates of Pride and Prejudice, we probably don’t need further proof that the queering...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 15, 2022
Boy meets pig
By now, we know that the Pride and Prejudice formula—opposites attract, enemies to lovers, snobby-meets-snarky—accommodates many...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 12, 2022
At your service
When you shell out $250 to $450 for a night in a university town’s boutique hotel, what amenities do you expect to get for your money?...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 8, 2022
Treasures of the collection
A year after a priceless nineteenth-century literary collection was rescued from the auction block and donated to public institutions...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 5, 2022
CryptoJane, Part II
Jane Austen’s famous remark about the relative value of tangible and intangible assets–“tho’ I like praise as well as anybody, I like...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 1, 2022
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