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Deborah Yaffe

Father knows best

Although Jane Austen’s novels never commanded huge print runs – the biggest, for Emma, totaled only two thousand copies -- Austen first...

Deborah Yaffe

Expensive thrills

For Janeites, the Austen First Edition Thrill-o-Meter is calibrated something like this: Biggest Thrill: Austen novel first edition owned...

Deborah Yaffe

Sticker shock

Apparently, it’s not just gas and hotel rooms: Pandemic-era inflation has also hit the rare book market. Or so we learned from a recent...

Deborah Yaffe

Pricey, and priceless

It’s always nice to know that other people value Our Jane the way we do. Like, value her in dollars. Last week, as blog readers will...

Deborah Yaffe

Austens with a pedigree

Owning first editions of Jane Austen’s novels – ideally, as I’ve noted before, of all Jane Austen’s novels – must be . . . pretty cool....

Deborah Yaffe

Another chance at completion

Less than a year ago, a rich person with excellent taste snapped up a complete set of Jane Austen first editions at a New York auction....

Deborah Yaffe

Beautiful books, glamorous provenance

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

Deborah Yaffe

Completist completes

Apparently, I’m not the only Jane Austen completist out there. Last week, as blog readers will recall, the New York auction house Swann...

Deborah Yaffe

The price of perfection

I was born with a completist gene. I like to finish things up – books, TV series, leftovers. I like to own full sets of things. I abhor...

Deborah Yaffe

P&P on the block

Once again, it’s time to play “If I Were a Rich Janeite.” (Cue klezmer music.) The British auctioneer Bonhams has announced that, later...

Deborah Yaffe

Collecting the uncollected

Fifteen years ago, Silicon Valley gazillionaire and Janeite Sandy Lerner opened Chawton House, a research library dedicated to the...