North American Friends of Chawton House

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

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

The return of spring brings many pleasures. Flowers! Baby birds! And, of course, a new Jane Austen bobblehead! Back in 2020, the North...

Deborah Yaffe

May 23, 2022

Janeites have a curious affinity for images of Our Author – even though, as I’ve noted before, we’ll never really know what she looked...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 8, 2021

When valuable editions of Jane Austen’s novels come up for auction, the selling point is usually something about the books themselves:...

Deborah Yaffe

Sep 10, 2020

Even in quarantine – especially in quarantine? -- Janeites apparently can’t get enough Jane Austen. Or so we might conclude from the...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 11, 2020

It’s no secret that the closing of pretty much everything in response to the coronavirus pandemic has hit non-profits and arts...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 27, 2020

Although Jane Austen is a quintessentially British writer, her admirers in North America are legion. Indeed, the Jane Austen Society of...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 17, 2019