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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at WesCo chapter.

Watching the most recent Jane Austen novel screen adaptation (Emma, released in February, in case I forgot to say it within the last 30 seconds) made me realize just how much of a Jane Austen nerd I am. I was freaking out over things that would be absolutely no big deal in a film set during the present day or in more recent decades, and it occurred to me that this has been the case for a good long while. So, I am compiling a list of characteristics that I have noticed I possess (and that I probably inherited from my equally nerdy and totally gorgeous mother) that I believe categorize me as a Jane Austen nerd. 

 

You might be a Jane Austen nerd if… 

 

… you have read any of her novels more than once (for fun, not for a class or assigned reading);  

 

… you have read all of her novels multiple times;  

 

… you can name all six of her novels (Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park);  

 

… you have a favorite Mr. Darcy (mine is Colin Firth),  

 

… and a favorite dance scene (I actually have several of those); 

 

… you have strong opinions about men’s sideburns,  

 

… and nerd out over ladies’ bonnets; 

 

… and you swoon over significant eye contact, 

 

… and touching hands without wearing gloves (see Pride and Prejudice, 2005, and Emma, 2020); 

 

… you’ve had at least one Jane Austen marathon (my annual one is coming up); 

 

… you want to learn cotillion/Regency era dances because of the ones you’ve seen in Austen adaptations; 

 

… you know about or have read Lady Susan (Jane Austen’s only epistolatory and only short story);  

 

… you know about or have read a version of Sanditon (Jane Austen’s unfinished novel that many other authors have finished themselves); 

 

… you’ve seen and love “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” on YouTube (and the accompanying book: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet); 

 

… you know that the movie Clueless is based on the novel Emma; 

 

… and, maybe last but definitely not least, you enjoy watching/reading/hearing anything Jane Austen related. 

 

Fellow Jane Austen nerds, feel free to add to this list as you please. I’m off to plan my annual Jane Austen marathon; I still need to plan tea and snacks.  

 

Natalie is a writer and a double major at Wesleyan. She is also the oldest sibling in a large family and a nerd. In her spare time, Natalie enjoys reading, baking, hammocking, and watching fantasy/sci-fi.
Maddy Delaney is the Co-Correspondent for Her Campus at Wesleyan College. When she's not writing, she's hammock-ing, eating mozzarella sticks, or knitting. Yes, she is, in fact, an elderly woman named Edith in a college student's body.