top of page
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
Search
A lively celebration
Fifty years ago, the ardent Janeite collector Alberta Burke--whose husband, Henry, would go on to co-found the Jane Austen Society of...
Deborah Yaffe
Jun 5, 2025
Where Rick reigns
Over the past couple of years, my husband and I have become fans of the travel maven Rick Steves , whose lucid and well-organized...
Deborah Yaffe
Jun 2, 2025
On the rise
This week, British Janeites were treated to a new TV docudrama/literary-historical-biographical analysis/250th birthday tribute called...
Deborah Yaffe
May 29, 2025
Sister act
If you spend any time online, you’ve probably encountered a version of that ubiquitous, tired clickbait, the “Which Jane Austen heroine...
Deborah Yaffe
May 26, 2025
Tempest in a teapot
Jane Austen is delightful. Tea parties are lovely. Raising money for college scholarships is admirable. So I’m ninety percent happy...
Deborah Yaffe
May 22, 2025
Dancing as if it's 2005
Twenty years, to quote Captain Wentworth, is “a period, indeed”—more than enough time “to change every pore of one’s skin, & every...
Deborah Yaffe
May 19, 2025
Dear diary
More than two centuries ago, Jane Austen’s older brother Edward Knight decided to get his Kent mansion painted. As anyone who’s endured...
Deborah Yaffe
May 15, 2025
Frank disappointment
Jane Austen seems to have adored her older brother Francis. In the handful of letters that survive from their correspondence, she...
Deborah Yaffe
May 12, 2025
Immersion
While Hampshire, England, is Ground Zero for Austen 250 celebrations, we Americans are doing our best to participate—and this week, the...
Deborah Yaffe
May 8, 2025
On this day in 1801. . .
One hundred and first in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. How improper were Jane Austen’s letters? By...
Deborah Yaffe
May 5, 2025
Regency playdate
Exactly 250 years ago, England saw the birth of a great artist whose innovations forever changed our culture. I speak, of course, of...
Deborah Yaffe
May 1, 2025
The other talented Austen sister
Cassandra Austen’s family considered her a skilled artist, but for most Janeites, her claim to artistic fame rests, uneasily, on a single...
Deborah Yaffe
Apr 28, 2025
bottom of page