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


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
2 days ago
2


Celebration, by any name
A 250th birthday goes by many names . It can be called a semiquincentennial, a sestercentennial, a quarter millennial--even a...
Deborah Yaffe
Jan 2
2


Celebrating significance
At my synagogue, members sometimes engage in public religious rituals to mark what we discreetly call “significant birthdays”--in other...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 16, 2024
0


Wondering about Alice
Chawton House, the Elizabethan mansion once owned by Jane Austen’s older brother Edward, has worked hard to transform itself from a...
Deborah Yaffe
May 27, 2024
0


Embroidering Chawton
The last time I completed a significant piece of needlework (see below) was during the early months of pandemic quarantine, when being...
Deborah Yaffe
May 2, 2024
2


AirbnJA
Janeites love making pilgrimages to the places where Jane Austen—or at least her relatives--once lived, worked, or ate. But for some...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 18, 2023
0


Flipping Austenian pancakes
If your house is anything like mine, this time of year features a whole lot of food. There are foods to provide for guests and family...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 4, 2023
0


Treasure chest
Chawton House, the Elizabethan mansion in Hampshire once owned by Jane Austen’s brother Edward, is one of the treasures of the Janeite...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 2, 2023
0


Summer fun
Chawton House, the Elizabethan mansion in Hampshire, England, once owned by Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight, has had a busy...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 27, 2023
2


Jeopardy and peril at Chawton House
Twenty years ago this summer, American tech mogul and Janeite Sandy Lerner finished up her multimillion-dollar restoration of an...
Deborah Yaffe
Apr 17, 2023
0


The scientific method
Over the past three years, the indefatigable Jane Austen & Co. has convened four smart and provocative online lecture series about...
Deborah Yaffe
Mar 9, 2023
0


Broadening the collection
The last time the pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft was the subject of a public fundraising effort, the results were...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 15, 2022
0
bottom of page