250 (& More) Reasons We Love Jane Austen
Born on December 16, 1775, Jane Austen turns 250 this year. Help us celebrate!
Everyone has their own reason for adoring Jane Austen, and we would all love to hear yours. Whether it's as simple as "Mrs. Bennet's nerves," a favorite witty line, or a heartfelt toast, we're gathering a joyful collection of 250—and more!—reasons you, her readers and fans, appreciate her. Join us in celebrating the incomparable Jane!
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Catherine Gwinner Jan 11, 2026, 7:03 AM (4 days ago)
During one of my husband's Army deployments to Iraq, I rediscovered Jane Austen. During this challenging time I started reading and learning more about her life and her novels. She 's become a cherished friend now after 20 years.
Susan Johnson Jan 4, 2026, 12:30 PM (10 days ago)
A little known fact about Jane Austen's Amber Cross Necklace was that it was worn by the heiress Caroline Crosby (CC) at her wedding in her parent's house on Park Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1933 when she married Charles Beecher Hogan. He was the owner of both Jane and Cassandra's necklaces and would ultimately donate the two amber crosses to the Jane Austen Museum in Chawton, UK in 1974. The unusual wedding news made the New York Times and many other newspapers across the country. It was also the talk around the community at Yale. In true Jane Austen fashion, did Charles marry Caroline for love or for her fortune? At the time the headlines described him as a low level librarian at Yale. Charles knew about the family milling fortune (later to be General Mills) because CC's brother was a professor of Art History at Yale and her sister also lived in a New Haven area which is why Caroline went to live there as a young woman to study piano. After his marriage to CC, Charles world opened up and he spent many summers in England researching books on the theater, buying first edition copies of Jane Austen's books and compiling a vast body of Jane Austen related materials that can be found today in the libraries at Yale and Harvard. Although he never completed more than a Master's Degree at Yale, he is often referred to as a Professor of English at Yale. CC and Charles never had any children and when he donated the necklaces to the Jane Austen Museum he did it only in his name even though it was said that he had given them to CC as a wedding present. He also never acknowledged or thanked CC for her support in any of his published books. Does the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice hold true in the opposite way: "that a single man [woman] in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife [husband]!!
Jane Axelrod Dec 31, 2025, 6:13 PM (14 days ago)
I love her wit and humor. Some laugh out loud, some subtle, some ironic. Her observations about human nature and human foibles are so spot on, but never malicious. One sees it all through her characters who are very real and very revealing. She is a mistress of "show don't tell" in her writing. I also love the slow burn of her relationships between men and women, how it develops and comes to fruition in subtle ways.
One can learn an amazing amount about people and human nature by reading Austen's works,
She manages to communicate it all without hitting you over the head with it as her insights are not preachy, gloomy or dreary but the observations from daily life and told in story form through memorable characters. She is the ultimate raconteur!
Beth Parrish Dec 31, 2025, 12:00 PM (14 days ago)
I didn't start reading Austen until I was in my 30's. For the last many years I have turned into a true Janeite! I cannot get enough. I will re-read all her books in succession at least once a year, and never get tired of them. I have recently began to branch into Jane's favorite authors. Reading Clarissa in its entirety. All my literary friends think I am crazy, and I am glad to be crazy for Jane!
Fay Radding Dec 31, 2025, 11:53 AM (14 days ago)
I've been a fan of history for decades and I love the "Jane-iverse" for giving me the chance to consume with gusto the feelings and daily concerns of Jane Austen and others in her orbit who are at the center of her novels, biographies, film adaptations, spinoffs and last but not least, scholarly articles! I'm captivated and grateful for the inspiration and joy of being a Janeite!
MS Dec 31, 2025, 11:17 AM (14 days ago)
Jane , is a timeless author because of the descriptiveness of each character in her stories. It enticed me from the very first time I read her book. Giving a glimpse of an epoch gone by.
Katherine Koller Dec 31, 2025, 10:08 AM (14 days ago)
I love Jane Austen because she is always laughing and encourages us to laugh, too, in the face of inequity, hypocrisy, ignorance and lack of feeling, even behind her most serious observations, right up until the end of Persuasion.
Katie Antrainer Dec 31, 2025, 8:02 AM (14 days ago)
Reading Jane Austen reminds me that we are not so different from the people that came before us. The human emotion is what makes these novels so timeless.
Chris Hench Dec 31, 2025, 5:04 AM (15 days ago)
In addition to what others have commented, JASNA has provided wonderful family bonding for us. My husband, my daughter and I are all enthusiastic Janeites! In addition, we have many friends we never would have met if it hadn't been for Jane.
Molly Gribble Dec 31, 2025, 4:11 AM (15 days ago)
I was recently at a celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday at the local library. Someone asked the speaker why we were celebrating the 250th birthday of Jane Austen and not Charlotte or Emily Bronte. One person suggested that it might be our need to escape. I asked if it might be that her characters so cleverly challenged men (sometimes to the point of redemption), and this is why we still need her. It is also the reason that she was both beloved and hated. Some men are threatened by a woman just challenging them, but a woman who can deliver the challenge cleverly is downright inconvenient and dangerous to their tightly held ideology.
Mark Twain once famously said, "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig Austen up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone." Yet he kept reading her works over and over again.
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