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In Memoriam
“…she entered into conversation… doing it with so much sympathy and natural grace, as shewed the kindest consideration for all…” (Jane Austen: Persuasion)
The Massachusetts Region lost a great leader, scholar and friend on April 16, 2025 when Marcia McClintock Folsom
passed away after a brief illness. Marcia was a life member of JASNA and frequent
presenter at AGM's. Many of her essays may be found in Persuasions and Persuasions Online.
In 2000, she was the co-chair, with Isa Schaff, of the Boston AGM, Pride and Prejudice: Past, Present and Future.
Most recently she was co-regional coordinator of our region.
Marcia was a professor of Literature at Wheelock College for 48 years,
serving also as vice president for academic affairs for several years.
She was at heart a teacher who loved introducing her students to
Austen and inspiring teachers on how to teach Austen. She was the
editor of four books for the MLA’s series Approaches to Teaching World Literature. She edited
two by herself, Pride and Prejudice and Emma. She
collaborated with John Wiltshire on Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility for the same series.
After the loss of our old meeting place JASNA-MA found a new home at the
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, thanks to Marcia.
She had a personal relationship to the place: her late husband,
Michael Folsom, was one of the founders of the museum and she
served for many years on the board of the foundation. Always
the scholar, she loved to point out that Francis Cabot Lowell, an
icon of the American Industrial Revolution, whose factories included
that very building, was born in 1775 and died in 1817, just like Jane Austen.
Anyone who attended one of our meetings remembers being warmly
welcomed by Marcia and her willingness to answer questions a
nd engage in discussions. If more was required than could be
answered at a meeting, she would sometimes send the questioner a detailed response by email.
She will be missed by the JASNA community for her
intelligence, knowledge, wit and even her sense of style.
Above all we will miss her welcoming and gracious presence.
“There is nothing so bad as parting with one friends,
one seems so forlorn without them” (Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice)
2025 - 2026 Season
Meetings this season will be held at 2pm, at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham, MA.
Meetings will be a hybrid of in-person and Zoom.
Meeting fee is $10 JASNA members, $15 non-members. Cash is accepted at the meeting.
Click here to purchase tickets.
Click here for driving directions and parking information.
Dates for the season:
September 14, 2025
November 9, 2025
Jane Austen, Book Owner
Deborah Barnum
In light of recent scholarship on female book ownership, this session will visually explore
the titles owned and inscribed by Jane Austen. Her extensive reading, her access to her
father's and brother Edward's collections and the local circulating libraries,
are well documented—but what of the books she took pride in actually
owning: How did she get them? What were they about? Where are they now?
How may Austen have mined these works for her own writings?
The variety is illuminating, showing the extent of her interests
and knowledge of the literature and history of her world.
Deborah Barnum, a former law librarian, is the owner of Bygone Books, a closed shop
of fine and collectible books. She is the co-founder of the JASNA-Vermont
Region and author of the "Jane Austen in Vermont" blog .
She compiled the "Jane Austen Bibliography" for Persuasions-Online
for eleven years, and continues to compile the "Year in Burney Studies" for the Burney Journal.
Barnum has served as JASNA Publications Secretary, has given various talks at the
AGMs on illustrating Jane Austen, as well as local regional talks and
OLLI program talks on Austen and other women writers. She serves
on the board of the North American Friends of Chawton House [NAFCH] and
works with Professor Peter Sabor and his "Reading with Austen" project in
locating books that were originally in Edward Austen's
Godmersham Park library. You can read about that here: https://readingwithaustenblog.com/
December 14, 2025
Afternoon Tea at Gore Place
A Celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Jane Austen's birth
Donna Chaff, pianist
March 16, 2026
Mary Mintz, JASNA President
May 3, 2026
Maura Henry and Dr. Caroline Alyea
Gender and Social Rank in Austen's Era
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