Deborah YaffeMar 16, 2020FeverishNo one in Jane Austen’s novels becomes infected with a coronavirus, but that doesn’t mean she has nothing to say on the subject that now...
Deborah YaffeJan 9, 2020Meg, Jo, Elinor, MarianneLike all American girls, I loved Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and when I shared it with my daughter many years after my first...
Deborah YaffeDec 5, 2019Jane Austen's side hustleThese days, it takes a lot for an instance of Austenian inaccuracy to surprise me. I hardly turn a hair when quotes from Austen screen...
Deborah YaffeNov 28, 2019Family dinnerAs we sit down to our turkey tonight, perhaps in company with relatives or acquaintances whom we carefully avoid the rest of the year,...
Deborah YaffeNov 4, 2019Strange bedfellowsBy now, we’ve gotten used to seeing Jane Austen in rather. . . um . . . interesting company. She’s been paired with zombies and sea...
Deborah YaffeSep 26, 2019Janeite on the Potomac, Part IIBipartisanship is sadly rare in Washington these days, so it’s refreshing to find one instance of agreement across the aisle, even in...
Deborah YaffeJul 29, 2019Greatest Hits, Part IThe Emmy nominations were announced recently, and all the brouhaha over Game of Thrones et al. has left me hankering to award some prizes...
Deborah YaffeJul 8, 2019Oh, those clothes. . The success of the screen adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels has been attributed to many factors: romantic plots, attractive stars,...
Deborah YaffeApr 8, 2019Jane Austen's first criticFor Janeites, it’s salt rubbed in a wound: the news that scholars will soon be able to inspect a fascinating trove of letters from an...
Deborah YaffeDec 31, 2018NineteenNineteen is a number much on our collective minds today, as we prepare to usher in 2019, the last year of the second decade of the...
Deborah YaffeDec 13, 2018Desperately seeking romance in Jane AustenVirginia Woolf famously wrote of Jane Austen that “of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness.” Let...
Deborah YaffeOct 1, 2018MismatchJane Austen’s novels are filled with marital mismatches. Clever, sardonic Mr. Bennet treats Mrs. Bennet with thinly veiled disrespect. In...