Was Jane Austen’s sister a hero or a villain? Find out in the BBC’s ‘Miss Austen’

In 2025, 250 years after the birth of one of the greatest authors of all time, the BBC and PBS Masterpiece will attempt to answer an age-old literary mystery: why did Jane Austen’s sister, Cassandra, burn so many of her late sister’s letters?

Jane Austen, writer of classic romantic works such as Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, and more is one of the most prolific and influential authors of all time. Not only did she write beautifully about love and heartache, but she also critiqued and examined the high society life she and her family were a part of. Perhaps most importantly, however, especially where the BBC and PBS Masterpiece’s upcoming show Miss Austen is concerned, Jane Austen also wrote about familial love—especially sisterhood. Pride & Prejudice would be nowhere near as funny, heartwarming, and relatable if Elizabeth Bennet didn’t have four sisters to contend with, after all.

Cassandra Austen, Jane Austen’s one and only elder sister, is the subject of Miss Austen, a four-episode miniseries due to air on the BBC and PBS Masterpiece next year. While Cassandra was and is nowhere near as famous as her sister—even during her sister’s time as an anonymous author—Cassandra is notorious for one major event: burning most of her and Jane’s correspondence. Historians and fans the world over have lamented Cassandra’s destruction, as many of Jane Austen’s personal letters have provided the world with a glimpse of who the renowned author was in real life; both with her family and by herself.

So why did Cassandra Austen burn all those letters? Was she wrong to do it, or did she save her sister’s reputation? Miss Austen, based on the best-selling novel by Gill Hornby, will reimagine and explore Cassandra’s relationship with her sister and her reasoning for burning those letters in a series that will be a “fascinating, witty and heart-breaking story of sisterly love, while creating in Cassandra a character as captivating as any Austen heroine,” per the BBC. Miss Austen’s synopsis reads as follows:

“The drama begins in 1830, many years after Jane has died. Cassandra (Keeley Hawes) rushes to visit Isabella (Rose Leslie), the niece of her long-dead fiancé, who is about to lose her home following her father’s death. Cassandra is ostensibly there to help Isabella, but her real motive is to find a hidden bundle of private letters which, in the wrong hands, she fears could destroy Jane’s reputation. On discovering them, Cassandra is overwhelmed as she is transported back to her youth. In flashback, we meet Young Cassy (Synnøve Karlsen) and Jane (Patsy Ferran) as they navigate the romantic infatuations, family feuds and dashed hopes which shaped their lives, and laid the foundations for Jane’s unforgettable stories. Cassandra’s re-evaluation of her past eventually leads her to find a way to guide Isabella towards the path of true happiness.”

The undeniably talented Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard, Line of Duty, The Durrells in Corfu) will portray Cassandra Austen. She will be joined by Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones), who will play Isabella Fowle, the niece of Cassandra’s former fiancé. Other cast members include Synnøve Karlsen (Last Night in Soho), Patsy Ferran (Hot Milk), Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey), Max Irons (The Wife), Alfred Enoch (How to Get Away with Murder), Calam Lynch (Bridgerton) and Liv Hill (Elizabeth Is Missing).

Was Cassandra attempting to protect her sister’s reputation? Was she simply giving her sister the privacy she deserved, despite being a literary sensation? It’s hard to say. We can say, however, according to Hornby, that if Jane hadn’t had Cassandra; if Cassandra’s spinster life hadn’t allowed Jane to stay single, too, if she hadn’t encouraged her sister’s writing so fiercely, we might never have met Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth Bennet or Fanny Price. The world would be much poorer for it.

I, for one, can’t wait to meet Cassandra.

Miss Austen premieres on PBS Masterpiece on May 4, 2025, in the U.S. The series will be broadcast in 2025 in the U.K. on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, though an exact release date has yet to be confirmed.