Chawton | DeborahYaffe.com

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

Gifts

My husband was sure there would be no gift shop at 8 College Street , the Winchester house where Jane Austen died, and which opened to...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 21

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

Contested ground

Jane Austen was a country girl, raised in a rural enclave of Hampshire, England, where the houses she lived in and the churches she...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 20

Not In Jane's Backyard, Part II

Jane Austen died without finishing Sanditon , her novel about a developer trying to turn a sleepy small town into a bustling seaside...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 15, 2024

How P&P came to be

It’s a great time for programming at Jane Austen’s House, the cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Austen wrote or revised all six of her...

Deborah Yaffe

May 25, 2023

Listening pleasure

It’s been a sadly long time since I strolled through the garden at Jane Austen’s House, the cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Austen...

Deborah Yaffe

May 22, 2023

Not In Jane's Backyard

Between her father’s death in January 1805 and her move into Chawton cottage in July 1809, Jane Austen was . . . not homeless, certainly,...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 4, 2021

A house in Austen country

As regular blog readers know, I find few pursuits more enjoyable than the ogling of Jane Austen-related real estate. This week’s...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 31, 2019

An embarrassment of Austen statues

Eighteen months ago, not a single statue of Jane Austen was on public display anywhere in the world. And now, it appears, we will soon...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 20, 2018

A statue for Chawton

The Hampshire village of Chawton is the mecca of the Janeite faith: the community where Austen spent the last eight years of her life,...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 21, 2018

A very (expensive) Jane Austen Christmas

If you are a Janeite with no 2016 Christmas plans – and a whole wad of cash left over from this year’s gift shopping – the New York Times...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 23, 2015

Celebrating Austen in Chawton

Jane Austen festivals are a dime a dozen by now, but Jane Austen Regency Week, the nine-day Austen festival that begins this Saturday,...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 18, 2015