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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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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, 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
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, 2025
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 20, 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 17, 2015
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