Paula Byrne | 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

Celebration, by any name

A 250th birthday goes by many names . It can be called a semiquincentennial, a sestercentennial, a quarter millennial--even a...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 2

In the past three years, Sanditon, the TV series based on Jane Austen’s last unfinished novel, has roller-coastered through a dizzying...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 24, 2021

Jane Austen is usually thought of as a quintessentially English writer, what with all those landed estates, rural rectories, and mannerly...

Deborah Yaffe

Apr 15, 2021

Most Janeites don’t need to hear, yet again, that Jane Austen was not a kindly maiden aunt whose sweet, insubstantial little romance...

Deborah Yaffe

May 13, 2019

New this week: The latest entry in the annals of Jane Austen Bizarro World (or, to be honest, Jane Austen-Adjacent Bizarro World). Three...

Deborah Yaffe

Mar 29, 2018

I love the British press. When it comes to Jane Austen, they can manufacture a story out of the thinnest gossamer. Even recycled...

Deborah Yaffe

Jun 5, 2017

In Austen studies, originality is hard to come by. The primary sources – novels, letters, family reminiscences, unfinished work – are...

Deborah Yaffe

May 11, 2017

Pity the poor Bank of England. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Back in July, when the Bank announced plans to...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 4, 2013