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Jane Austen breaks her silence in celebrity interview!
A thread in celebration of #JaneAusten250

Questions posed by The Age: answers from Jane Austen (as told to Claire Harman), illustration by Chris Riddell, from cover of the audiobook, Jane's Fame.

27 October 2025 - To celebrate Jane Austen's 250th anniversary, Jane's Fame, the landmark study of Austen's authorship and reputation history, is now available as an audiobook, read by the author. Available on Spotify, Apple Books, BookBeat, Kobo, Everand & more.

'What can you make of a person so determined from the start to hold a stand-off with posterity?' - my review of The Letters of Muriel Spark in the September issue of Literary Review:

literaryreview.co.uk/fighting-wor...

Another chance to hear Katie Hims's enchanting 'And Other Stories: Katherine Mansfield', featuring Hattie Morahan as KM, broadcast on R4 this afternoon:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

'Thought followed thought - star followed star
Through boundless regions on,
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through and proved us one'

Happy Birthday, Emily Brontë, genius poet, born 30 July 1818

'A young woman made of highly flammable material' - my review of The Letters of Emily Dickinson, for Literary Review:
literaryreview.co.uk/postmark-amh...

'We think she's a moralist, but surely she's far too worldly for that. The degree to which she might be misunderstood is already calculated by the author, and allowed for.' The Real Jane Austen, from 2011:
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/notting-hill...

'Austen’s chameleon quality makes her eminently safe for mass consumption; a life companion, or, if you’re seeking one, life coach'. My review of Janet Todd's Living with Jane Austen, in this week's @thetls.bsky.social

www.the-tls.co.uk/literature-b...

I'm delighted to be taking part in this Bronte event at fabulous Seamus Heaney Homeplace, in just two weeks' time.

On Deborah Levy's 'intellectually flirty' collection of essays, for this week's TLS:
www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

'I, so wary of traps,
So skilful to outwit
Springes and pitfalls set
Am caught now, perhaps'
Sylvia Townsend Warner asleep with Thomas the cat, caught by her lover Valentine Ackland. From 'The True Voice of the Heart', now online at
journals.uclpress.co.uk/stw/article/...

'The hidden treasure within this story is the powerful, barely expressed knowledge of each other that both the Misses Austen took to their graves'; my Literary Review piece on Gill Hornby's 'Miss Austen', premiering tonight on BBC 1.
literaryreview.co.uk/sense-sister...