Janeite

The term Janeite has been both embraced by devotees of the works of Jane Austen as well as used as a term of opprobrium. According to Austen scholar Claudia Johnson Janeitism is "the self-consciously idolatrous enthusiasm for 'Jane' and every detail relative to her

.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.[1] 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 "Janeites" about a group of World War I soldiers who were fans of Austen's novels.
During the 1930s and 1940s, when Austen's works were canonized and accepted within the academy, the term began to change meaning. It was used to signify those who appreciated Austen in the "wrong" way and the term, according to Lynch, is "now used almost exclusively about and against other people" [emphasis in original)

http://tribes.tribe.net/cultofjaneausten