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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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Essex Emma
Novelists haven’t been shy about updating Emma to various walks of contemporary life: We’ve had queer teen Emma , hetero teen Emma ,...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 29
In Jane Austen's handwriting
Physical copies of Jane Austen’s letters are rare commodities. Of the 160 letters whose text we have, seven are known only from copies...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 25
Ready, set, read
Amid all the concerts, exhibits, tea parties, balls, walking tours, screen adaptations, and souvenir merch celebrating the 250 th ...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 11
Janeite fun for all ages
Although Jane Austen didn’t write for children, many Janeites discover Austen during their tween or teen years, around the age when...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 28
Hatching time
Like periodical cicadas, Austen adaptations come around on a predictable schedule. Every ten or fifteen years, a newly hatched crew of...
Deborah Yaffe
Jul 24
Picking favorites
When I’m asked which Jane Austen novel is my favorite—and if you write a book about Jane Austen fandom, you will be asked this question...
Deborah Yaffe
Apr 7
Tunes
“To be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a musical society,” the newlywed Mrs. Elton reports telling her...
Deborah Yaffe
Feb 17
The year's last snark
It’s always tempting to gorge on soon-to-be-forbidden foods in the days before starting a diet. Similarly, as New Year’s Resolution time...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 30, 2024
R.I.P. Quackers
Let me say up front that I understand that the death of a beloved pet—like the death of a newborn baby --is no laughing matter. And yet,...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 9, 2024
Gotcha!
One of the pleasures of life as a pedantic Janeite killjoy is the opportunity to call out minor--yet vexing!--Austen-related errors...
Deborah Yaffe
Jun 10, 2024
Growth spurt
Back in the 2010s, when I first started reading Jane Austen fanfic, the typical example of the genre was a romance novel, either Regency...
Deborah Yaffe
May 9, 2024
Snooze
Earlier this year, I had the occasion (read: an excuse) to rewatch several of the feature-film adaptations of Emma. I reconfirmed the...
Deborah Yaffe
Apr 22, 2024
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