Mystery, Marriage & Manners: Gill Hornby’s ‘Miss Austen’ adapted for television
As our celebrations marking Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary begin, the programme’s creative director, Dr Gabrielle Malcolm, takes a look at guest speaker Gill Hornby’s novel, Miss Austen and its BBC adaptation.
There are many mysteries that concern fans of English Literature. Where did Agatha Christie go when she disappeared for eleven days in 1926? Who was the ‘person on business from Porlock’ who interrupted Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s composition of Kubla Khan – were they even real? And why did Cassandra Austen destroy selected letters of Jane Austen after the writer’s death?
This last case was used as a springboard for Gill Hornby’s best-selling novel Miss Austen (2020), now a major BBC TV series.
It is set in the midst of the early Victorian period, one of new-found propriety under the young queen following the bawdy reigns of her Georgian uncles. Honestly, where could you go when William IV alone had more than ten illegitimate children with a number of women? His descendants from his mistress, Irish actor Dorothea Bland, include former British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Hornby sets Cassandra off on a sleuthing trail of sorts to track down the cache of Jane’s letters hoarded somewhere in their beloved old haunt of the vicarage at Kintbury. It is a race against time, before the new rector and his wife move in.
So, without giving away any spoilers, this is a reflection on the drama that will consider some of the insights about women’s daily lives from the Regency into the Victorian period that Hornby covers. She understands these thanks to thorough research and the ability to project them into her characters’ experiences.
Firstly, women were expected to show up. Childbirth, illness, deathbed care and moving house and the Austen women, particularly Cassandra (with Keely Hawes as the elder Cassandra), do show up for these major events, pitching in with care, chores and generally taking control. Male physicians pay calls, but it’s the women of a family that actually minister to patients, the dying and expectant mothers. Simultaneously making themselves available and amenable to a suitable marriage.
Therefore, as Hornby shows us in this speculative account of the Austen family, Jane’s (Patsy Ferran) decision to be an author came at some cost for what were seen as her duties and role within the household. It is Cassandra, along with her father George Austen (Kevin McNally), who help to navigate a path for the talented youngest sibling. Jane is depicted carrying her famous writing slope, gifted to her by George, as the family move from Hampshire to Bath.
The loving relationship between Cassandra and Jane is taken a stage further by Hornby. She depicts their collaborative process when it comes to Jane’s writing. Cassandra acts as a sounding board and eventual informal editor of her sister’s novels. It is a touching portrayal of how the female author of the time depended upon the support network provided by relatives.
This is also a drama of grief and loss. Cassandra seems to be in constant mourning. The happiness is brief – when the sisters can capture it. Their sojourn in Bath is, of course, punctuated by the sudden loss of their father. A morsel of joy is allowed for George, however, who hears that his beloved ‘Jenny’ is to be published just before he experiences the seizure that leads to his death.
This drama is in the great tradition of BBC adaptations of literature. Hornby brings sentiment, intrigue and poignancy to the fictionalized account of the Austen family. She has developed something of a thriving subgenre in fiction for these speculative stories about the wider Austen circle, with her two other novels Godmersham and The Elopement. And you can enjoy Gill Hornby’s insight into her own work when she visits Bath in April and October for the Strictly Jane Austen 250th celebrations.
