Fans of Jane Austen will know that the writer didn’t have the same happy ending her characters did. There was no Mr. Darcy – or even Mr. Collins – for her.
“Masterpiece” on PBS offers viewers a carefully crafted, if elegaic, window on her life with the debut of the four-part series “Miss Austen” on Sunday.
Based on the 2020 novel by Gill Hornby, the story’s core is the relationship between Jane and her older sister/best friend/life companion Cassandra. One of Hornby’s aims was to imagine why Cassandra, to the frustration of Austen scholars, burned many of her sister’s letters. It’s a mystery whose emotional depths seems appropriate to explore during 2025, the 250th anniversary of Jane’s birth.
Why We Wrote This
Why did Cassandra Austen burn her celebrated sister’s letters? That mystery lies at the core of the new “Miss Austen,” a four-part series on PBS.
Events celebrating the author are scheduled throughout the year – particularly in her native England. Aficionados can take their pick of festivals, balls, and exhibits. A French romantic comedy, “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life,” is slated to be released later in May. Netflix has plans for a new “Pride and Prejudice” series. The well-acted “Masterpiece” offering is a more somber affair. Keeley Hawes (“The Durrells in Corfu”) anchors an excellent cast. And her thoughtful turn as Cassandra offers Janeites some pop-culture solace: Hawes is married to Matthew Macfadyen, who played Mr. Darcy in the 2005 film “Pride & Prejudice.”
“Miss Austen” begins in 1830, more than a decade after Jane’s death, when Cassandra (Hawes) rushes to the home of a family friend. The man she goes to see, the brother of her late fiancé, soon dies. Cassandra stays on to help one of his daughters, Isabella (Rose Leslie), prepare to move.
Cassandra is also determined to retrieve correspondence between Isabella’s late mother, Eliza, and Jane. All three were confidants. Protecting Jane’s legacy and privacy are strong motivations for her sister. When a new acquaintance suggests a biography should be written about the author, Cassandra firmly disagrees.
“Everything one needs to know about Jane Austen is to be found within the pages of her novels,” she says. “There is nothing more.”
Cassandra stealthily rummages in desk drawers and wardrobes looking for correspondence from an earlier time. While reading, she flashes back on the young women’s experiences: Finding and losing love. Being turned out of homes, while male relatives, with the ability to earn a living, are comfortably situated. Being expected to nanny a sibling’s children for no pay.
The often grim realities of women’s life prospects in the 19th century are fully felt here. (Be sure you have tissues for episode 4.) But so, too, is humor, as when Jane (Patsy Ferran) teases young Cassy (Synnøve Karlsen) about a suitor.
“I’m something of an expert in romantic matters,” she says, insisting she saw sparks between the pair. “I think one even caught in my bonnet. Because of your charms, I might have gone up in smoke.”
Jane’s own sisterly bond likely informed some of her most famous characters: Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, Jane and Elizabeth Bennet. Not all of the sisters portrayed in “Miss Austen” are amiable – Isabella’s, for example, are somewhat lacking in filial spirit. But Isabella is also the character whose future eventually offers the most hope.
Those who have the film and TV adaptations of Austen’s books memorized are in for something much different in tone here. The alluded-to realities of the author’s life, about as far from “Clueless” as you can get, serve to make the satire and shelf life of “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility,” and “Persuasion” all the more impressive. Knowing that Jane Austen never got her own Pemberley, and seeing the penury and leaking roofs portrayed, are very different things.
But what of Austen and love? As in real life, she is briefly engaged. In this telling, she quickly realizes that she doesn’t want to give up her true passion, even if it means living a more austere life. Her sister is adamant that, for Jane, this was the only way.
“Writing was Jane’s greatest love,” says Cassandra. “No man was ever worthy.”
