It’s a truth universally acknowledged that anyone in want of attention could do worse than take possession of Jane Austen.

We’ve already had Austen and zombies, Austen and game theory, Austen and guinea pigs.

Now, a scholar has offered another spit-take-inducing pairing: Jane Austen and the alt-right.

No, bonnet-wearing Janeites have not been spotted at white nationalist gatherings. But in an article published March 12 in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “Alt-Right Jane Austen” (and illustrated with a drawing of the beloved British novelist in a Make America Great Again hat), Nicole M. Wright, an assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado, describes finding a surprising Austen fan base.

It started, she writes, when she noticed the provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos riffing on the famous first line of “Pride and Prejudice,” turning it into a dig at “ugly” feminists. (He also mistakenly called Austen, who died during the reign of George III, a “Victorian” novelist, but whatever.)