Exhibits | DeborahYaffe.com 2/3

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

Desk set

The celebration of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth won’t officially kick off until next year, but that isn’t stopping the...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 17, 2024

Love among the stacks

Is Jane Austen a romance novelist? Discuss. Or, if you’re not interested in revisiting your test-taking days, you could just travel to...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 19, 2024

Regency fashion, off the beaten path

My husband grew up in the northwestern English city of Lancaster. It is not my favorite place. The weather is frequently dank and...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 15, 2024

The Shirt, unveiled

Sometimes launching a museum exhibition is a complicated process, as catalogs are researched, international loan agreements negotiated,...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 13, 2024

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

In the mind's eye

Jane Austen’s physical descriptions of her characters are famously sparse. But if you ask me, Anne Elliot, Emma Woodhouse, and Elizabeth...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 23, 2023

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

Semi-native daughter

Jane Austen’s stays in the southern English port of Southampton were short-ish and not especially happy. As a seven-year-old, she...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 20, 2023

Bonnetfest closeup

If you’re a Janeite who can’t make it to Cincinnati’s Taft Museum of Art this summer – and will therefore miss your chance for an...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 9, 2022

Bonnetfest

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – in other words, in mid-2019 -- I wrote about a traveling exhibition of costumes from Jane...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 17, 2022

In lieu of a pear tree

It’s a tough year for traditional Christmas celebrations. The eight maids are a-milking in masks. The ten lords are a-leaping six feet...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 3, 2020

Chawton cottage panorama

Pandemic life has made clear, at least to me, that online interactions are no substitute for the in-real-life kind. Still, it’s...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 25, 2020