Three Ways to Celebrate Jane Austen’s Birthday

Novelist Jane Austen was born 250 years ago, on Dec. 16, 1775. Celebrate Austen’s incredible legacy of wit and wisdom with a new historical novel based on a real-life Austen book club, a 2025 miniseries about Austen’s sister Cassandra, and a 2014 miniseries that sets iconic characters Lizzie and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice into a murder mystery.

Austen at Sea: A Novel, by Natalie Jenner

With a deep knowledge of Austen history, author Natalie Jenner builds on the success of her bestseller The Jane Austen Society with this 2025 ode to the classic English author. Instead of retelling an Austen novel in a modern setting (which many authors have done), Jenner reveals things about the author cleverly through a fresh new piece of historical fiction.

In 1865 Boston, Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson are chafing at the restrictions society has placed upon them as women. Their father, a Massachusetts Supreme Court justice, is protective yet proud of his “obstinate, headstrong girls” (a famous Austen description). He and his colleagues in the court are engrossed in a Jane Austen book club, a detail based on a real book club among justices of the era. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Henrietta begin writing letters to Sir Francis Austen, Jane’s only surviving sibling. A pair of bookselling brothers is also in contact with Sir Francis, and soon all four characters are on a ship bound for England.

Jenner also draws upon her past as a lawyer to add fascinating and accurate details about the laws of the day, especially those regarding women and their agency or lack thereof. Perfect for book clubs, Austen at Sea is a font of insight into the author’s life and family members. (St. Martin’s Press)

Miss Austen

As all Janeites know, the vast majority of Jane Austen’s letters (only 160 out of 3,000 were preserved) were burned by her older sister, Cassandra. In this superb miniseries by the BBC (now airing on PBS Masterpiece Theater), we get to know Cassandra much better as we grapple with the loss of those letters. What might they have revealed?

Cassandra, played with typical nuance, gravity, and understated emotion by Keeley Hawes (The Durrells in Corfu), is the loyal, grieving sister who will not let Jane’s letters fall into the wrong hands. In flashbacks, Cassie and Jane’s relationship is rendered here as devoted and heartfelt—a sisterly love that is infused into some of Austen’s most famous characters, including Lizzie and Jane Bennett and Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Jane is played perfectly by Patsy Ferran. Not only does she look like the portraits we have of Jane, but she exudes a shining, joyful character, wisdom, intelligence, and playfulness.

Because the dual timeline of present, mature Cassie, played by Hawes, and the young Cassie of 20 years past (played by Synnøve Karlsen) is set in time periods very similar in dress and manner, it does get confusing about which timeline the viewer is watching. Still, if the viewer figures out who is who and who is in which timeline, the story rewards as it unfolds. Will the obnoxious Mary Austen, Jane and Cassie’s sister-in-law, gain possession of the letters before Cassie can burn them? We know the answer, but the suspense crackles softly anyway. With themes of grief, memory, loyalty, and the role of women in Regency society, Miss Austen is a thoughtful way to spend four hours getting to know Jane and her sister better. (Prime Video, PBS Passport)

Death Comes to Pemberley

If you have ever wondered what happened to Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet after they got their happily ever after in Pride and Prejudice, iconic British mystery author PD James has some ideas.

James, who was definitely a darker, more gothic type of author than Jane Austen, imagined in her novel Death Comes to Pemberley what it would be like to catch up with the Darcy and Bennet families and throw a murder mystery in the mix. In 2014, the BBC released this three-part series based on the book.

The series picks up the action six years after the events of Austen's story. Lizzie and Darcy have a little boy and are as happy as ever together. The vibe at Pemberley is equitable, loving, and chill, kind of like them as a couple. Hosting a ball is in the works, and everyone is bustling around, making preparations. However, when a body is found in the woods of their “park,” and their brother-in-law/nemesis Wickham looks incredibly guilty in the matter, the atmosphere quickly becomes tense and foreboding.

As a keen fan of British cozy mysteries and Jane Austen, this melding of genres worked for me. Lydia Wickham (played by Jenna Coleman) is as self-centered and annoying as ever, which made me wonder if any writer could ever redeem her. Worse is her husband, Wickham (Matthew Goode), who never fails to make the worst choice possible. But did he really kill his only friend, Captain Denny? And if so, to what end?

I relished reentering the world of Pemberley and its people, especially Lizzy and Darcy, and Darcy’s sister Georgianna, who gets more filled out as a character here. Now she would be a good main character in a spinoff novel!

A word about the casting: Though Welsh actor Matthew Rhys is suitably brooding as Darcy, Anna Maxwell Martin was a miss as Lizzie. Not sprightly enough, and not enough twinkle in her eyes. But then again, there has been a murder in her yard, so perhaps she can be excused. Absorbing, well-plotted, and gorgeously shot, Death Comes to Pemberly is a worthy way to spend a few hours, catching up with one’s favorite Austen couple and wondering, whodunnit—was it Wickham, Lydia, or someone else entirely? (Masterpiece PBS)