It is a love affair that has swelled and receded like an ocean wave for almost 200 years, and make no mistake, these days the Jane Austen tide is high.

Never mind that the author's novels were written in the stilted English of long ago. Austen, who lived from 1775 to 1817 and penned Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma, is proving to be BFF (best friends forever) with the text-message generation.

Internet blogs praise Austen's insight, social clubs meet to discuss her work, and thoroughly modern novels (Jane Austen in Boca, The Jane Austen Book Club, and the forthcoming Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs) recast the writer's timeless plots into cell-phone, SUV America.

Fans can download audio text from the novels into their iPods; there is a Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, offering advice for landing Mr. Right; and Cooking With Jane Austen is filled with recipes for dishes such as syrup of mulberries and broiled mutton.

"I found one of her books at the library book sale when I was in eighth grade," says Oakley Strasser, 17, of Pattenburg, N.J. "It was a little hard to read, but I kept at it, and I realized that her characters were going through the same stuff I was going through. Parents, boys and things, even though we are separated by 200 years."

Now, the high school senior says, she not only has read and reread all of Austen's novels, she has also written an article about the significance of card games in the books to be published in a British literary journal this spring.

But it's the pop-culture limelight that keeps Jane alive. Tonight at the Academy Awards, 20-year-old Hollywood siren Keira Knightley will find out if she'll be chosen as best actress for her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet in the most recent film version of P&P, which appealed to a new generation of young people.

Princess Beatrice of England (Fergie's royally hip teenage daughter) has planned her 18th-birthday party in August around a Pride and Prejudice theme, with guests dressing as their favorite character.

In May, Headline publishing plans to reissue all six of Austen's books as straight-up romance novels, with bubblegum-pink covers that scream chick-lit.

"Because she's always relevant," said Maggie Sullivan, 43, of Glenside, who edits Austenblog.com. "People just keep rediscovering her. People who like romance focus on that, people who are religious focus on the morality of her stories. Karen Joy Fowler, the author of The Jane Austen Book Club, wrote that 'each of us has a private Austen,' and I pretty much agree with that."

Joan Klingel Ray, president of the Jane Austen Society of North America, says she believes Austen's insight into women's inner lives transcends history.

Known for her gentle satire of social conventions, and a penchant for sharp-eyed heroines with impeccable manners, Austen manages to write about smoldering love without a single mention of hot sex.

"I actually think that restraint is part of the appeal," says Paula Marantz Cohen, 50, literature professor at Drexel University and author of Jane Austen in Boca and Jane Austen in Scarsdale, the latter to be released next month.

"Her novels are about how people act with one another, who you can trust, and who constitutes a good mate," says Cohen, a noted Austen and Shakespeare scholar. Those issues never fade.

Set in a Florida retirement community and based on Pride and Prejudice, Cohen's book Jane Austen in Boca became a best-seller in 2002. She has recently completed her third novel, Jane Austen in Scarsdale, which is essentially Persuasion set in a modern suburban high school.

Hope Dellon, Cohen's editor at St. Martin's Press, says creative spins on Austen classics are almost always hits. In addition to Clueless and Bridget Jones's Diary, there recently was the Bollywood film Bride and Prejudice. And now, following the success of the Knightley movie, Princess Diaries actress Anne Hathaway has reportedly signed on to star in a biopic about Austen's life.

"I saw Emma, the one with Gwyneth Paltrow, then I read the book and fell in love with her writing," the Doylestown resident recalls. "I think that's the typical trend nowadays. If I meet somebody who liked the film, I'll ask, 'Have you read the book?' "

Rhodes, a member of the society, said it held an information meeting shortly after the most recent Pride and Prejudice hit the cineplex, "and we had lots of high school kids asking questions there."

Fans embrace Austen as a true sister-friend, Ray says, creating Web sites in her honor (besides austenblog.com, there are janeaustenpages.com and austen.com), T-shirts and mousepads featuring witty quotes from her books, and even a Jane Austen action figure, with writing desk and quill pen.

Elizabeth Jane Steele, 56, president of JASNA's Eastern Pennsylvania chapter, says the license plate on her Camry reads "JANEITE," and her collection of "Austenobilia" includes a beach towel featuring the first lines of Pride and Prejudice; a set of Jane Austen paper dolls; a bookend in the shape of the author's house in Bath, England; an Austen wristwatch, mugs, and bumper stickers; "and countless canvas tote bags."

Austenblog.com, one of the most comprehensive Internet sites, is run by Sullivan, who says she started the blog two years ago and that it now averages 800 unique visitors a day.

A Web site manager for a Center City law firm by day, Sullivan says she feeds her Austen mania at night, trolling news sites, other blogs, and academic papers to keep up with everything Austen.

Sure, it's much ado about a woman who has been dead for 188 years, Sullivan says, but being a Janeite is no different from being, say, a muggle who is crazy for everything Harry Potter, or a diehard ESPN watcher.

"I'm sure if she were writing today, she'd be skewering Martha Stewart and she'd get a kick out of the celebrity culture," says Kim Robertson, 26, a graduate student at Lehigh University. "She was a prolific letter-writer, so I'm sure she'd be blogging, absolutely."

include Jane Austen in Boca and Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs by Paula Marantz Cohen, available in April. Also The Jane Austen Book Club: A Novel by Karen Joy Fowler.

Jane Austen's Guide to Dating by Lauren Henderson. The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye, and So You Think You Know Jane Austen?: A Literary Quizbook by John Sutherland and Deirdre Le Faye.

, official site of the Jane Austen Society of North America, with links to regional chapters. The Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter has a meeting scheduled on March 25; to register, see jasnaeastpa.org.

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