Henry Austen | DeborahYaffe.com

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

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

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

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