Janeite
Janeitism did not begin until after the publication of J. E. Austen-Leigh's "A Memoir of Jane Austen" in 1870, when the literary elite felt that they had to separate their appreciation of Austen from that of the masses. The term "Janeite" was originally coined by the literary scholar George Saintsbury in his 1894 introduction to a new edition of "Pride and Prejudice". As Austen scholar Deidre Lynch explains, "he meant to equip himself with a badge of honor he could jubilantly pin to his own lapel". In the early twentieth century, Janeitism was "principally a male enthusiasm shared among publishers, professors, and literati". Rudyard Kipling even published a short story entitled "The Janeites" about a group of World War I soldiers who were secretly fans of Austen's novels.
Pride and Prejudice (1995 TV series)
As one of the BBC's and A&E's most popular presentations ever, the serial was "a cultural phenomenon, inspiring hundreds of newspaper articles and making the novel a commuter favourite". With the 1995 and 1996 films "Persuasion", "Sense and Sensibility" and "Emma", the serial was part of a wave of Jane Austen enthusiasm which caused the membership of the Jane Austen Society of North America to jump fifty percent in 1996 and to over 4,000 members in the autumn of 1997. Some newspapers like "The Wall Street Journal" explained this "Austen-mania" as a commercial move of the television and film industry, whereas others attributed Austen's popularity to escapism.