Wednesday, 12/24 - 9 AM to 5 PM (closing early at 5 PM)Thursday, 12/25 - CLOSED (Christmas Day)Wednesday, 12/31 - 9 AM to 5 PM (closing early at 5 PM)Thursday, 1/1/26 - CLOSED (New Year's Day)Book drops will be available at all times.
Published on November 10, 2025
This year is the 250th anniversary of the British writer Jane Austen’s birth! On Wednesday, October 3rd, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm, join us at the Library as Austen scholar Patricia Ard discusses why Austen’s six brilliant novels have earned her lasting fame and a worldwide readership across centuries. Austen’s novels and family life help to illuminate her time period, one of continuing war, problematic royals, and turbulent class struggle. Her central themes of money, morality, and marriage resonate in all of her works, including Pride and Prejudice, her most read and re-read book. Modern adaptations of that novel and her others will be a central focus of this talk. Come celebrate Jane!
This will be offered as a hybrid event. No registration is required to attend in-person. To attend virtually via Zoom, please click this link to register.
Patricia Ard is a Ramapo College of New Jersey professor emerita of English and a Jane Austen scholar. She has taught Austen's work for decades, and continues to do so as a faculty member of the Fairleigh Dickinson Institute of Lifelong Learning (FILL). Her two most recent published essays in the Jane Austen journal Persuasions Online concern Austen's approach to female beauty and male friendship in her novels. Professor Ard is a lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA).
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the library either by phone at (973) 185-6970 or by email at rsb1@co.morris.nj.us