Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775 (exactly two years after the Boston Tea Party, apropos of nothing) I found a huge website devoted to everything Austen and had to link to this page of jokes, parodies, lists, and general Austen silliness. Here’s a sample joke:

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single chicken, being possessed of a good fortune and presented with a good road, must be desirous of crossing.