top of page
  • Writer's pictureDeborah Yaffe

Keepin' it classy

Don’t worry, honey, I’m not planning to get one. But I was still exceedingly diverted by this feature on “Classy Jane Austen Tattoo Ideas” – carefully curated, presumably, to avoid contamination by the far larger pool of cheesy, down-market Jane Austen tattoo ideas. (I must, however, point out – as I so often do – that #9 is from Austen’s juvenilia – specifically Love and Freindship -- even though it’s used in the 1999 film adaptation of Mansfield Park. Sigh. This is such an uphill battle.) Despite their obvious classiness, none of these tattooed Janeites seems to me to approach the devotion of Alethea White-Previs, the Virginian whose photos of her own Janeite skin art can be seen here, on the Among the Janeites Facebook page. Whereas the folks pictured in the classy-tattoos feature apparently have one Austen tattoo apiece, Alethea has seven (or possibly more, by now: I haven’t heard from her in a while). Now, if I were going to get a classy Austen tattoo, which would it be? I kind of like “half agony” on one wrist and “half hope” on the other. . .

2 comments

Oct 27 2015 06:21PM by Libby

Oh please, please get "imprudent" tattooed on your lower back. Your children will howl!


Oct 27 2015 06:48PM by Deborah Yaffe

I did the Regency dress-up thing, but research has its limits. And permanent skin ink is one of them.

0 comments

Related Posts

See All
bottom of page