THE BOOK is that memorable, cherished book you read when you were school age. It was given to you by a parent, grandparent, teacher, or librarian. Most of our remembered BOOKS were enjoyable, but some were scary or sad or bad. Their common bond is that they made an impression that has lasted into adulthood…
THE BOOK is that memorable, cherished book you read when you were school age. It was given to you by a parent, grandparent, teacher, or librarian. Most of our remembered BOOKS were enjoyable, but some were scary or sad or bad. Their common bond is that they made an impression that has lasted into adulthood…
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Wonder about some British slang and what it means? Try to figure out what these ones are.
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Today, I’d like to talk about tolerance. Specifically, about tolerance in Jane Austen’s works. Now, I belong to a number of Facebook Austen groups, which can be both funny and fun. (This was where I first encountered this great New Year meme: “I take no leave of you, 2025. I send no compliments to your…
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“Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor—which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.” Jane Austen wrote to Fanny Knight, 13 March 1817 Feminism made a long overdue showing in the 18th Century. Society, as a whole debated important issues, and, naturally, well-informed women began to question their place in the…
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It has been a few years since I’ve done this and it’s probably long overdue. There have been several changes happening in my life over the last few years, but the last time I “mapped them out” in a January post was before Always Austen started in 2023. Since that time, my husband retired; I…
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Two books give me joy in the New Year. The first, by Sarah Emsley, is The Austens, a novel about Jane Austen’s relationship with her sister-in-law, Fanny Palmer Austen. The second, by Rebecca Romney, is Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, nonfiction about women writers who shaped the English author. Both works are part of the onslaught of…
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Greetings, Dear Readers. Happy New Year! One of my goals for 2026 is to expand my digital footprint as much as possible, which translates into more audio content, increased visibility with more paths to discovery. I can think of no better way than to optimize the content I already have. For the past couple of…
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Celebrating New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in the Regency was not as we picture the celebrations today. Those were two days of what was (and still is to a lesser extent) Twelfthnight. Twelfth Night is a Christian festival on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of Epiphany on…
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New Year’s was not always celebrated on 1 January. Ancient cultures celebrated the New Year in mid-March with the planting of a new crop. It is said that the Babylonians were the first to make New Year’s resolutions. That would be more than 4000 years prior. They would hold a 12-day religious festival, which is…
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I come very proud Scots. I am from a direct line of Clan MacThomas from the seventh chief of the clan, John Mccomie (Iain Mòr), who has passed into the folklore of Perthshire. Therefore, in my family, New Year’s (or Hogmanay as it was once called) played a popular part of my childhood. Although I admit to overspending…
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She is an established literary figure in English literature. Austen’s skillful use of mixing together the narrator’s telling the story with a character’s thoughts and emotions and dialogue was just catching on in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but it is a mainstay in modern fiction. She created literary realism.
People speak of the greatness of Shakespeare, but falter when asked to read or explain his works. Not so, with Jane Austen. Because her works have been so easily consumed for more than 200 years, some forget how groundbreaking the six novels of the daughter of a simple rector in rural Hampshire, England, can be. We on this blog have not forgotten.
