'Miss Austen's Trailer Seeks to Protect Jane's Legacy

Even if Jane Austen's untimely passing hadn't happened, it's highly doubtful she would have lived to see 2025; this year marks the late author's 250th birthday, and as befitting one of the two best selling female authors of all time in the U.K., celebrations are underway. The Jane Austen House, for example, has a full calendar's worth of events to mark "Jane Austen 250." The BBC has commissioned an adaptation of The Other Bennett Sister, which is expected by the end of the year, and multiple documentaries are in the works. Over here in the U.S., Masterpiece has been readying an adaptation of its own, Miss Austen, based on the novel of the same name by Gil Hornby, which is slated to debut in May 2025.

Hornby's novel could, by rights, be considered a form of fan fiction. Like her best-selling compatriot, Agatha Christie, Austen's life contained some puzzling elements, whose mystery was exacerbated by some of the actions taken by her siblings in the event of her passing, namely Cassandra Austen, her older sister, who for reasons still unknown to this day, was moved to burn dozens and dozens of letters written by the famous author, letters that would have been a key window into who Jane Austen was as a person.

Scholars have debated why Cassandra took such a drastic action for decades; however, Hornby's fictional flight of fancy as to why she did is firmly rooted in the foundational love story found in all of Austen's novels. No one will love and protect you like a sister can, even if that well-meaning protection sometimes can suffocate those around you.