Category: Persuasion
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My Husband, Mr. Darcy, and Me: An Anniversary Trip to England
This summer my husband and I are planning a trip to England to celebrate our 35th anniversary. Huzzah!!! Now, to be clear, my sweet husband is not a Jane Austen fan. I doubt he could name all six of her novels, or perhaps even two of them. But he knows the plot of Pride and…
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An Austen for Every Age: A Book for Each Decade of Your Life
Here is my entirely subjective guide to which Jane Austen novel belongs to each decade of life—and why. Have you loved different books as you age? I’ve always loved Persuasion and P&P, but as I get older, Mansfield Park is growing on me.
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Christmas Celebrations: Short Stories of Jane Austen Fan Fiction
At Christmas time, we return to Jane Austen’s world where warmth, wit, and hope remind us of what truly endures. This sixth Christmas Anthology gathers new stories inspired by Jane Austen’s beloved characters, imagined by authors who offer fresh insight into their emotions, their choices, and the moments left untold. These tales remind us why her creations…
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Launch Week for Muslin & Mystery!
The trunks are loaded, the mailbags are sealed (securely this time), and our packet ship has sailed!. Muslin and Mystery launched on Monday! This voyage began with a question: what if some of Jane Austen’s most composed and self-assured characters found themselves crammed together on a small ship, far from home, with nothing to do…
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Jane Austen: Delightfully Destroying Her Own Characters
She is the queen of character assassination. Her own characters that is. Here are some of my favourite Jane Austen take-downs, where the narrator destroys a character: Mr. Collins, Pride & Prejudice: The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for…
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What Happened to Kitty and Mary?: Austen Reveals What Happened to Her Characters After the Novels Ended
Read about Austen’s endings for Jane Fairfax, Kitty, and Mr. Woodhouse.
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Packet Ships, Peril, and Persuasion: Setting Sail in 1813 (+ an Excerpt)
There’s something gloriously impractical about sending a lady to sea in the Regency era. The skirts! The cockroaches! The chamber pots that slid everywhere! Yet by 1813, Britain was bursting with people doing exactly that—soldiers, diplomats, merchants, and, occasionally, their wives—rattling around the globe in those sturdy little packet ships I’ve been describing lately. My…
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Paths Retraced: Travels and an Anthology
As I write this post, I’m still dusting the final vestiges of jet lag from my shoulders, almost but not quite back into the routine and—yes—time zone of my normal, everyday life. We returned just a week ago from another visit to the United Kingdom. We were there to help my daughter settle into her…
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Blackbirds in Austen’s World
The war widow: sentimental depiction of a grieving woman whose husband has gone to fight in the South African War. Photograph of The Boer War, a painting by John Byam Shaw. &&&& These reflections upon military widowhood in Austen’s time found root in the first and seventh volumes of the Bennet Wardrobe Series, where Lydia…
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Ranking the Most Emotionally Clueless Austen Men
(A lighthearted list — Mr. Collins is obvious, but not alone) They say the wrong thing. They entirely miss the point. Sometimes they launch into a long, confident speech, while everyone else wonders if there’s a polite way to make it stop. Many of these moments belong to the Austen men who are not villains.…