Obsessive Jane
Austen fans or “Janeites” are nothing new. The term “Janeite” was coined
in 1894 by George Saintsbury in his preface to a new edition of Pride and
Prejudice. In 1924 Rudyard Kipling wrote a short story, “The Janeites”,
about First World War soldiers who coped with the horrors of trench warfare
by discussing their love of Austen’s novels. Fans of Austen seem, almost
uniquely, to feel the need to identify with the heroines, in a way that fans
of George Eliot (for example) do not. A symptom of this is the novel The
Jane Austen Book Club (2004) by Karen Joy Fowler and its 2007 film
adaptation. Five women and one man meet monthly to discuss Austen’s novels.
Each of them relates to Austen’s work in different ways; as the narrator
sums it up: “It was essential to reintroduce Austen into your life regularly
... let her look around.”
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