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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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On this day in 1808. . .
One hundred and fourth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Jane Austen, it seems, took a rather jaundiced...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 2, 2025
Who's counting?
It’s fair to say that Jane Austen was a prolific letter-writer. Deirdre Le Faye, who edited the standard edition of Austen’s...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 1, 2025
On this day in 1814. . .
Ninety-fifth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Jane Austen was a patriotic Briton, and during her...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 2, 2024
On this day in 1813. . .
Ninety-fourth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Only about two years of Jane Austen’s childhood were spent...
Deborah Yaffe
May 20, 2024
On this day in 1811. . .
Eighty-fourth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. It’s traditional to envision Jane Austen as a homebody, and...
Deborah Yaffe
Apr 20, 2023
On this day in 1815. . .
Sixty-eighth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. Last month, I noted that Jane Austen’s account of a...
Deborah Yaffe
Oct 18, 2021
On this day in 1813. . .
Sixty-seventh in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. Nostalgia for Jane Austen’s era has always struck me as...
Deborah Yaffe
Sep 16, 2021
On this day in 1814. . .
Sixty-sixth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters. We’ve all got those relatives – the ones we know about but...
Deborah Yaffe
Aug 23, 2021
On this day in 1801. . .
Sixty-first in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Jane Austen communicated nothing particularly remarkable in...
Deborah Yaffe
Feb 11, 2021
Crashing at Henry's place
Few of Jane Austen’s heroines are economically secure, so it’s ironic that her modern-day brand has become inextricably associated with...
Deborah Yaffe
Dec 7, 2020
On this day in 1815. . .
Fifty-eighth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. Although Jane Austen was a professional writer who spent six...
Deborah Yaffe
Nov 23, 2020
On this day in 1817. . .
Fifty-fifth in an occasional series of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters. I recently finished reading my eighth biography of Jane...
Deborah Yaffe
May 27, 2020
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