Happy 200th, Jane Austen's Emma! I got to share my perfect happiness about that novel's enduring relevance over on Literary Hub today. (Spoiler: Cat People reference.)

Meanwhile, over on Twitter: Published 200 years ago today, Jane Austen's Emma and Directions for Preparing Manure from Peat. See above essay on why I believe Emma may be the better book. 

Still looking for that perfect stocking stuffer for your Janeite and/or rumor-mongering bibliophilic loved one? How about buying "the eighteenth-century bestseller that may have inspired Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility republished for the first time in a modern edition"? Our edition of Jane West's A Gossip's Story (1796) is now available from Valancourt Books!

I co-edited this book with then-Mizzou Undergraduate Research Scholar Melinda O'Connell (now MU BA English) and with then-Mizzou PhD student (now MU PhD English) Caitlin Kelly over many years. I'm grateful to them for their collaboration. All three of us are big fans of Valancourt's publisher and editor extraordinare, Jay Jenkins, for his belief in (and patience with!) this project.