The BBC has announced that Miss Austen will launch on Sunday 2 February 2025, the year that marks the 250 year anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. In America, the series will air on MASTERPIECE on PBS from Sunday 4 May. with the series starting its weekly broadcast on BBC One that evening, and all episodes available on BBC iPlayer starting at 6am. Produced by Bonnie Productions for MASTERPIECE in collaboration with the BBC, the four-part drama is based on Gill Hornby’s best-selling book of the same name. Production on the series concluded in and around the home counties last year.
BAFTA-winning author Andrea Gibb (Elizabeth is Missing, Mayflies) has adapted Miss Austen for television. Gibb takes a literary mystery—the burning of Cassandra Austen’s famous sister Jane’s letters—and turns it into an engrossing, humorous, and tragic tale of sisterly love. Gibb also gives Cassandra a character that is as compelling as any Austen heroine.
In the recently unveiled teaser, Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard, Line of Duty, It’s A Sin) plays Cassandra Austen, providing an insight into her relationship and devotion to her sister Jane. The play opens in 1830, many years after Jane’s passing, when Cassandra hurries to see Isabella (Rose Leslie), her long-dead fiancé’s niece, who is set to lose her house due to her father’s passing. Although her stated goal is to assist Isabella, Cassandra’s true goal is to locate a secret collection of private letters that, in the wrong hands, she believes could ruin Jane’s reputation. When Cassandra finds them, she is overcome with emotion and is taken back to her childhood. In addition, the trailer features flashbacks of Young Cassy (Synnøve Karlsen) and Jane (Patsy Ferran) navigating the romantic infatuations, female friendships, and crushed hopes that shaped their lives and established the groundwork for Jane’s enduring tales. Max Irons (Condor, The Wife), Alfred Enoch (How to Get Away with Murder, Foundation), Jessica Hynes (Life After Life, Years and Years), Mirren Mack (The Witcher: Blood Origin, The Nest), Kevin McNally (The Crown, Ten Percent), Calam Lynch (Bridgerton, Sweetpea), Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey, Shetland), and Liv Hill (The Serpent Queen, Elizabeth Is Missing) are also part of Miss Austen’s cast.