This issue of Persuasions On-Line is published on Jane Austen’s 249th birthday.  Here begins the celebration of her 250th year!  In fact, of course, JASNA began its celebration with the long-awaited Annual General Meeting in Cleveland, Ohio.  Austen, Annotated: Jane Austen’s Literary, Political, and Cultural Origins was a perfect commencement. 

Austen’s origins are, after all, quite distant from the world we inhabit today.  Her world is legible to us, but we continually bump up against differences.  The dimensions and details of daily life, her literary references, the sounds of her musical world, her visual vocabulary, political and philosophical concerns—all these and other aspects of her cultural language are in many ways different from ours.  Although most of us probably came to Jane Austen in unannotated editions and enjoyed her novels so much that we keep returning to them, we want more!  We want to understand more about her world.  We want to look more closely at how she achieves her magical effects.  In other words, we want annotation. 

In A Dictionary of the English Language (1755, 1773) Austen’s dear Doctor Johnson defines annotation as “[e]xplications or remarks written upon books; notes.”  To explicate—or, as he tells us, “To unfold; to expand.  To explain; to clear; to interpret”—provides many routes for annotation.  Annotation can unfold by diving into a small aspect of the argument that only a subset of readers might find fascinating.  Annotation can provide additional information, additional perspectives (supportive or contrary to the argument being made).  Annotation comments:  it asks questions, tracks thought processes, makes connections, displays wit.  When we came together (in person and virtually) to consider Austen, Annotated, then, we came for all these things. 

Austen, Annotated was brilliantly and creatively organized by Jennifer Weinbrecht and Amy Patterson, assisted by their hard-working Ohio–North Coast team.  The essays in the AGM section of Persuasions On-Line 45.1 include two plenary addresses and break-out topics ranging from art and music to political and philosophical change to grammar and annotated translations.  (Other essays from the AGM will appear in Persuasions 46.)  The Miscellany (or, as Johnson has it, “A mass formed out of various kinds”) lives up to its name:  essays on Austen’s family, connections to Aristotle and Mary Wollstonecraft, the role of the monthly nurse, translation and adaptation, and more.  We hope you enjoy the information, the new perspectives, the connections, and the wit of these essays—and that you’ll visit the 2023 Jane Austen Bibliography for publications further afield.

Thanks in putting this issue together are due to a human miscellany (if I can apply a neuter noun to people), each with something to contribute through information, ideas, questions, and wit.  The authors of these essays have shared their learning, their perspectives, their time.  The members of the editorial board (listed on our title page) have generously worked throughout the year and with particular intensity over the last few months to read and respond to submissions.  Marsha Huff and Marie Sprayberry have performed marvels of proofreading (which no one notices but me).  Carol Moss has built pages, caught errors, and suggested solutions to problems with unfailing expertise and amiability.  Iris Lutz, JASNA’s Web Manager, Celia Easton, JASNA’s Vice President for Publications, and Mary Mintz, JASNA’s President, have provided a range of support for Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line throughout the year.  This journal is truly a JASNA project. 

And a final note:  Perhaps most of all, annotation is a distraction.  It momentarily takes us off the page, breaks us away from the main focus or argument.  Austen, Annotated was exactly that:  it marked a time away from our daily lives and even a time away from the narrative pull of Jane Austen’s fiction.  We returned home, and return to Austen, full of new knowledge, new ideas, new experiences of pleasure, new friends.  I hope that this issue of Persuasions On-Line unfolds with similar effects.