Persuasion | DeborahYaffe.com 2/7

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

Short and sweet

Fellow novelists do not invariably appreciate Jane Austen—looking at you, Charlotte Brontë!—but it’s always a pleasure when they do. And...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 27, 2023

Jane Austen speaks . . . sort of

On October 3, I conducted a Facebook Messenger chat with Jane Austen, or at least with the AI named after her--one of twenty-eight AI...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 9, 2023

Represent

Representation is a hot topic in literary circles these days, as publishers reckon (late, slowly, and imperfectly) with their long...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 3, 2023

Listening pleasure

It’s been a sadly long time since I strolled through the garden at Jane Austen’s House, the cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Austen...

Deborah Yaffe

May 22, 2023

Alumni reunions

Over the holidays, my family settled in for a screening of that sublime romcom Notting Hill. When the movie ended (“I’m just a girl,...

Deborah Yaffe

Jan 12, 2023

CryptoJane, Part II

Jane Austen’s famous remark about the relative value of tangible and intangible assets–“tho’ I like praise as well as anybody, I like...

Deborah Yaffe

Dec 1, 2022

Regency reality

For some Janeites, fandom entails an intense engagement with the material details of Austen’s world. These Janeites are the people who...

Deborah Yaffe

Nov 28, 2022

Snooze

People who hate Jane Austen – yes, such benighted folks do exist – sometimes claim that she is so-o-o boring that she causes eyelids to...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 17, 2022

The pendulum swings

The smashing success of Netflix’s Bridgerton has ushered in a new era of multiracial casting in Regency costume dramas. This is good...

Deborah Yaffe

Oct 13, 2022

Still talking

It’s never a bad time to talk about Persuasion–really, what are you doing that’s more important?--but right now may be an especially good...

Deborah Yaffe

Aug 11, 2022

Cue the wine and cheese

Last spring, as blog readers will recall, the London Times announced that Persuasion was the sixth most popular book on TikTok, the...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 25, 2022

Something to talk about

Google the Omniscient doesn’t seem to know if it was Henry Ford, P.T. Barnum, or somebody else entirely who first declared, “I don’t care...

Deborah Yaffe

Jul 21, 2022