FOR ONLY $40,000, Jane Austen’s ring can be yours. “A gold and turquoise ring that belonged to Jane Austen, a Mozart among English novelists if one thinks about the dazzling perfection and brilliant invention of her prose, or perhaps a Vermeer if one considers the intense observation and painstaking description of her portrayals, is being auctioned off at Sotheby’s next week in London. The ring’s provenance seems pretty well established; this is a rare chance to buy a serious piece of real literary history.”