Keeley Hawes and Jessica Hynes star in a 4 part UK period drama.
2025 UK period drama Miss Austen, an adaptation by Andrea Gibb of the novel Miss Austen by Gill Hornby, premieres soon on ABC.
Miss Austen takes a literary mystery – Cassandra Austen notoriously burning her famous sister Jane’s letters – and reimagines it as a fascinating, witty and heartbreaking story of sisterly love, while creating in Cassandra a character as captivating as any Austen heroine.
The 4 part drama stars Keeley Hawes and Jessica Hynes.
Episode 1 1830.
A letter arrives at Chawton Cottage, where Cassandra Austen has lived alone for the thirteen years since her sister, Jane Austen’s, death. The letter is from Kintbury, once the home of Jane and Cassandra’s dearest friend Eliza, and Cassandra, now in her fifties, travels there to attend the deathbed of Eliza’s husband, the reverend Fulwar Fowle. But Cassandra has an additional motive: she wishes to retrieve some mysterious and important personal items that she knows are inside the Kintbury vicarage. Arriving unannounced, Cassandra is met with a cool reception at Kintbury, but soon forms a bond with Fulwar and Eliza’s daughter, Isabella. In the days after Fulwar’s death, Cassandra finally f inds an opportunity to search the house, and the object of her search is revealed: the letters Jane wrote to Eliza throughout their friendship. Cassandra’s mission is urgent – not only will Kintbury soon be taken over by the new vicar and his family, but her untrustworthy sister-in-law, Mary Austen, reveals that she, too, is looking Jane’s letters to Eliza.
9pm Sunday July 27 on ABC (all episodes on iview).