By Devoney Looser, Arizona State University
Thanks to Jane Austen’s success, literature became an Austen-family business. In his 1870 Memoir, James Edward Austen-Leigh repeatedly referred to the novelist as ‘Aunt Jane’. She was his Aunt Jane, of course, but it was also a nickname that stuck and that would be picked up by others. By the early 20th century, writers who weren’t related to Jane Austen at all were referring to her affectionately and familiarly as ‘Aunt Jane’.
‘Aunt Jane’
The phenomenon of ‘Aunt Jane’ is an odd one. There are very few authors whom we refer to like this, in familial terms. It was and is somewhat unusual. There’s definitely a bit of benign sexism involved. We don’t call Dickens ‘Uncle Charlie’, and we don’t call Shakespeare, ‘Uncle William’.
Speaking of Austen as an aunt has had some unintended negative effects. It’s allowed some readers to dismiss her as a lightweight author. But it may also have had some positive outcomes, too. For one, it may have allowed her and her fiction to seem more familiar and approachable and therefore expanded her mass readership.
To take up a play by the great bard, William Shakespeare may seem intimidating to young readers, while to take up a novel by ‘Aunt Jane’ may seem far less so. When Austen was read in elite and scholarly circles, she was generally referred to by her surname, as Austen. But in popular and middlebrow circles, she was and is sometimes still referred to as ‘Jane’.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Life and Works of Jane Austen. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Janeites: Austen’s Fans
This split in nomenclature—between Jane and Austen—may be a part of what led to the wider adoption of the word ‘Janeite’ in the late 19th and into the 20th century. Janeite is a term that remains in use today. It refers to Austen’s appreciators or fans. It’s a word used by those appreciators themselves, as well as by those who would dismiss them as overly enthusiastic or uncritical ‘superfans’.
It is unfortunate and limiting when scholars are discouraged from being enthusiastic or when enthusiasts are automatically imagined as unintellectual. But regardless of where one imagines oneself, it’s important to grasp that the word Janeite first emerged positively. It was used to indicate one’s belonging to a community of readers that collectively admired and together discussed Austen’s fiction.
Origin of the word ‘Janeite’
The novelist Rudyard Kipling published a short story with the title ‘The Janeites’ in 1924. In it, he imagines Austen’s fiction being read among soldiers in World War I. In that story, knowing Austen’s fiction creates a bond among strangers in wartime. It helps a soldier survive battle. The short story famously includes the line “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.” The surface meaning of that line implies a dangerous situation or a foxhole. Critics have read the line in other ways, too.
However, the word Janeite dates back at least to 1894, when it appeared in George Saintsbury’s introduction to a prized and deluxe reprint edition of Pride and Prejudice. Known as The Peacock Edition, this book includes 160 illustrations by Hugh Thomson, and a gorgeous gilt cover.
Copies are now highly collectable and regularly sell for high prices. Its image also appears on t-shirts, tote bags, mugs, and puzzles. The peacock itself has since become an image attached to Pride and Prejudice, thanks to its association with pride. The Thomson Peacock edition proved a watershed moment for Austen collectors and appreciators, as well as an originary one for the word Janeite.
Public Monuments to Austen
In the late 19th century, it was fashionable to use the suffixes -ite and -ian tacked onto a name to describe fan followers. In the 1880s, there were Dickensians and semi-Dickensians. At the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth in 1895, the crowd was welcomed and addressed as Brontëites. Before the word Janeite appeared, there were people using the term Austenites instead.
Austenites, and Janeites, didn’t work as quickly as the Brontëites did to secure a site for a museum and a place for pilgrimage for devotees. Public monuments to Austen began to appear in the late Victorian period, with the earliest one initiated by her collateral descendants. Groups of British and American Janeites worked together to put up plaques in her honor, at Chawton Cottage, where Austen lived and worked, and in Winchester Cathedral, where she’s buried. Some appreciators, however, thought monuments were too unladylike a thing for Austen or not sufficiently aligned with what they saw as her modest feminine spirit.
Common Questions about Jane Austen’s Legacy
In his 1870 Memoir, James Edward Austen-Leigh repeatedly referred to Jane Austen as ‘Aunt Jane’. The nickname stuck and was later picked up by others. By the early 20th century, writers who weren’t related to Jane Austen at all had also started referring to her affectionately and familiarly as ‘Aunt Jane’.
Speaking of Austen as an aunt has had some unintended negative effects. It has allowed some readers to dismiss her as a lightweight author. However, it also has had some positive outcomes, too. For one, it seems to have allowed her and her fiction to seem more familiar and approachable, in turn expanding her mass readership.
This split in nomenclature—between Jane and Austen—may be a part of what led to the wider adoption of the word ‘Janeite’ in the late 19th and into the 20th century. Janeite is a term that remains in use today. It refers to Austen’s appreciators or fans. It is a word used by those appreciators themselves, as well as by those who would dismiss them as overly enthusiastic or uncritical ‘superfans’.
