It is a truth universally acknowledged that every article about Jane Austen must begin with “It is a truth universally acknowledged”. Now we’ve got it out of the way, we can proceed.
To mark the 250th anniversary of her birth, new Sunday night BBC drama Miss Austen stars Keeley Hawes as the novelist’s sister, Cassandra, and tackles the long-standing literary mystery of why Cassie burned her famous sibling’s letters after she died. But how does it stack up within the canon of small-screen Austens? We’ve cast our net wide to include riffs and reboots as well as straight-up bonnet-and-breeches adaptations. Here are our all-time top 20, ranked from Plain Janes to Superbrains …
