Keeley Hawes gives a classy performance in Miss Austen ...Middle East

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, and our obsession with the beloved author shows no sign of waning, especially in the world of TV. This year will see the BBC air The Other Bennett Sister, a new spin on one of Austen’s less popular characters, Mary Bennett, while Netflix has commissioned an update on Pride and Prejudice from the “millennial Nora Ephron”, Dolly Alderton. But first up is Miss Austen, a four-part adaptation of Gill Hornby’s bestselling 2020 novel of the same name.

It is the story of Jane’s older sister Cassandra, who is most famous (or infamous) for burning hundreds of Jane’s letters after her death. Historians and Austen fans have long cursed her actions, accusing her of depriving the world of precious insight into the writer’s inner world.

And so, Miss Austen is a redemption tale of sorts: shining a light on the overlooked Cassy and celebrating her and Jane’s sisterhood, without which it is implied Jane’s novels may not exist.

We meet Cassy (Keeley Hawes) as she is rushing to the deathbed of the Reverend Fowle, a close family friend. Ostensibly, Cassy is there to support Fowle’s daughter Isabella (Rose Leslie), who is being unceremoniously turfed out of her home to make way for the new vicar. But it quickly becomes apparent that Cassy’s real motive is to find her sister’s hidden correspondence and keep it from those who might wish to exploit it for fame or money, in particular her sister-in-law Mary (Jessica Hynes).

This plot is perfectly adequate but as a story centred on the reading of letters, it does, by necessity, involve a lot of Hawes muttering to herself and gazing into the middle distance as she processes her sister’s words (although she does both beautifully).

I dress up as Jane Austen to escape the hell of modern society

More engaging are the flashbacks that come as Cassy delves into the letters and relives her youth. Young Cassy is played by Synnøve Karlsen, who is a remarkably good fit for a young Hawes (the two women have previously played mother and daughter in The Midwich Cuckoos) while young Jane is a playful, witty presence from the standout Patsy Ferran, best known for her Olivier Award-winning work on stage. As the two navigate being young women in a society that only values them as marriage material (sound familiar?), it is their sisterly bond that sustains them.

There are all the tropes you might expect from an Austen-adjacent narrative – a regency ball, an overbearing mother, multiple marriage plots and societal scheming. It all preaches to an audience of existing fans, yet never quite reaches the dizzy heights of Jane’s own writing.

However, the bones of events are true and tragic: Cassy’s own love story ended after her fiance died of yellow fever on a naval voyage. Her subsequent determined singlehood marked her out, like her sister, as an oddity in society, and the inferior position of women is central to both timelines: in the present day, Isabella is vulnerable after the death of her father as an unmarried woman with no male guardian.

There is something a bit awkward about highlighting our unquenchable thirst to truly “know” Jane Austen. Miss Austen attempts to justify Cassy’s actions in protecting her sister’s privacy, while also imagining exactly what those letters might have said for the purpose of the drama. The truth is that we will never know what Jane wrote to her friends and that is probably exactly as it should be.

But Miss Austen is nonetheless a gentle and charming period drama, filled with classy performances that will delight Austen fans if not necessarily spawn new ones.

‘Miss Austen’ continues next Sunday at 9.05pm on BBC One

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