Miss Austen, the BBC’s newest series, has all the hallmarks of any Jane Austen book. There are suitors. There are spinsters. There are agonised (and possibly doomed) romances and there are overbearing family members who don’t seem to realise how awful they are.
But this show is different, because it’s based on real life. Specifically, the lives of Jane and her beloved elder sister Cassandra: the self-proclaimed keeper of Jane’s literary flame, who burnt many of her personal letters after her death. Why? That’s what the show is seeking to answer – or at least, imagine.
