One piece of information that your neurons probably never fire about is that Kelly Clarkson is worth a million billion dollars. She may seem like just a girl you went to high school with who later became a hairdresser, or your rural cousin's girlfriend who already has a 2-year-old named Braylee from a previous relationship, but know this: Kelly Clarkson has enough money to have you killed and then pay to "make it go away" six times over.

After successfully campaigning to have old school author Jane Austen appear on the UK's ten-pound bill, Caroline Criado-Perez has been swamped with death threats and rape threats on Twitter. She reports seeing "about 50 abusive tweets an hour for about 12 hours," describing the reaction as having "stumbled into a nest of men who coordinate attacks on women." The advocate has responded by retweeting the threats, which include promises of violent action, demeaning remarks, and plans to find her.

Looks like the royal baby will have zero time to recover from its swim through the English Channel of amniotic fluid before doing battle with its first foe: a giant Loch Ness monster version of Colin Firth that has just been plunked down in Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, London.

Who among us has not come away from reading a classic like Austen's Pride and Prejudice or Brontë's Wuthering Heights and been disappointed by the distinct lack of explosive sex scenes?

There is only one accepted portrait of Jane Austen, sketched by her sister in 1810, in which the author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice looks to be extremely pissed off. But Austen scholar Dr. Paula Byrne, who is working on a definitive biography due out some time in 2013, has discovered a portrait in auction, and thinks there is an excellent possibility that the woman in it daintily holding a quill and staring out a window pensively — which, coincidently, is precisely how I look at this exact moment — could be Austen herself.

This week on Work of Art, the artists had to create cover art for classic novels. For Jaclyn, who got "Pride and Prejudice," this meant doing a topless photoshoot, because nothing says Jane Austen more than naked ladies!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has the heart wrenching narrative of a Jane Austen novel, but the gore of slaughtering zombies. So everybody wins! And the trailer promoting the book drives home the bloodlust of the Bennett sisters. Classic Austen!

This portrait of an ex-boyfriend of Jane Austen's is thought to be the man who inspired Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy—the original Mr. Big. His name was Thomas Langlois Lefroy. (Is that a powdered wig in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?) Click to enlarge—the original portrait is only three inches. [Daily Mail]

Like berry-colored lipstick and chunky-heeled Steve Madden boots, caring a lot about Jane Austen is a fad that needs to be left in the 90s where it belongs. Sadly, an Austen biopic starring Anne Hathaway will be released this August, doubtless spawning a bunch of trend articles with "it is a truth universally acknowledged" leads and paragraphs that open by addressing the reader as "Reader." The Times got into the game early with not one but two columns in yesterday's Week In Review section (which is usually about, like, war and stuff, right?) that link that film to a contested Austen portrait. Charles McGrath concludes that Austen "probably wasn't much of a looker," while Verlyn Klinkenborg op-editorializes that we're shallow for even wondering: "It is a failing to read Shakespeare and feel impoverished by the lack of biographical detail. It is no less a failing to read Austen and wonder what the mirror said when she looked into it. I cannot think of anything that would make "Emma" richer than it is." Conclusion: whoever was in possession of the responsibility for putting this section together must be in want of a clue.

Pretty Words, Jane, Would That You Were Too [NYT]
If Jane Austen Were Among Us Now, Whom Would She Cast As Herself? [NYT]