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.
Sense and Sensibility (film)
In the United Kingdom, "Sense and Sensibility" was released on 23 February 1996 in order to "take advantage of the hype from "Pride and Prejudice"", another popular Austen adaptation recently broadcast. Columbia Tristar's head of UK marketing noted that "if there was any territory this film was going to work, it was in the UK." After receiving positive responses at previews, marketing strategies focused on selling it as both a costume drama and as a film attractive to mainstream audiences. Attention was also paid to marketing "Sense and Sensibility" internationally. Because the entire production cycle had consistently emphasised it as being "bigger" than a normal British period drama literary film, distributors avoided labelling it as "just another English period film." Instead, marketing materials featured quotations from populist newspapers such as the "Daily Mail", which compared the film to "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994). It was watched by more than ten million viewers in Europe. Worldwide, the film ultimately grossed $134,582,776, a sum that reflected its commercial success. It had the largest box office gross out of the Austen adaptations of the 1990s.