Turkey makes an appearance in more than one of Jane Austen’s completed novels—and, it turns out, in one of the unfinished ones, as well.   Given the fraught nature of Thanksgiving guest lists, perhaps it’s appropriate that this passage from The Watsons , the novel Austen abandoned around 1805, is also the tale of a guest from hell: Jane Watson, the sister-in-law of heroine Emma Watson. Like Emma ’s Mrs. Elton, Jane Watson is a pretentious social climber masquerading, hilario

Ah, Thanksgiving traditions: Turkey , mashed potatoes , pumpkin pie —and brutal political arguments among loved ones!   With this year’s...

As my family and our guests gather around our Thanksgiving table today, the menu will include a roasted carrot salad discovered in a...

Like many of us in the Age of COVID, I’ll be hosting an unusually small Thanksgiving party tonight – just the four members of my...

As we sit down to our turkey tonight, perhaps in company with relatives or acquaintances whom we carefully avoid the rest of the year,...

Thanksgiving Day may seem to be a holiday with no connection whatsoever to the works of Jane Austen. True, her major novels include the...

Thanksgiving Day is upon us once again, and once again it’s time to search the works of Jane Austen – who, as an Englishwoman who never...

In her fiction, Jane Austen was acutely aware that the duty of gratitude can sometimes be weaponized: think of Sir Thomas Bertram...

For last year’s Thanksgiving Day blog, I amused myself by searching out Austen references to turkey. (As it happens, there are two – one...

As I contemplated my holiday cooking earlier this week, I found myself wondering whether Jane Austen ever mentions The Bird – our...

As a concept, gratitude is important to Jane Austen: Elizabeth feels it for Darcy when she learns what he's done for Lydia; Sir Thomas...