Over the last decade, as Jane Austen has moved center-stage in our culture, onto bestseller lists and into movie houses, another figure has slipped into the spotlight alongside her. This is the "Janeite", the zealous reader and fan whose devotion to the novels has been frequently revoked and often derided by the critical establishment Jane Austen has long been considered part of a great literary tradition, even legitimizing the academic study of novels. However, the Janeite phenomenon has not until now aroused the curiosity of scholars interested in the politics of culture. Rather than lament the fact that Austen today shares the headlines with her readers, the contributors to this collection inquire into why this is the case, ask what Janeites do, and explore the myriad appropriations of Austen -- adaptations, reviews, rewritings, and appreciations -- that have been produced since her lifetime.

The articles move from the nineteenth-century lending library to the modern cineplex and discuss how novelists as diverse as Cooper, Woolf, James, and Kipling have cl