Miss Austen

I just finished Miss Austen (2020), by Gill Hornby. Beautiful!

Like Godmersham Park, this is a novel based on real people. The Miss Austen in question is Cassandra, the older sister of the famous novelist. I guess everyone who reads Jane Austen would recognize that we wouldn't refer to Miss Jane Austen as "Miss Austen" while her elder sister is still unmarried.

I really loved this book. Indeed, I wept at the end. It's not even real. I mean, it's a novel about all the stuff we don't know about Jane and Cassandra. But it's so touching!

Apparently, there's an adaptation of it showing on BBC1 right now. We will get it here in the states on PBS in May. Nice!

Update (2025-05-18): I just finished the adaptation on PBS. So good! It was in four parts (so nearly four hours) and was really well done. I cried at the end again, even though I knew what was going to happen!