9 Books for Fans of the TV Series Miss Austen

For the two decades following the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen has lived a quiet life as a spinster with one purpose: to preserve and elevate the literary reputation of Jane. Now in her sixties and increasingly frail, Cassandra goes to stay with the Fowles of Kintbury, the family of her long-dead fiancé, in search of Jane's private correspondence. Within this trove of letters are secrets about Jane as well as Cassandra herself. But what to do with them? Should she destroy potentially important details of Jane's history or keep them hidden from the world and risk losing her legacy?

Jane and Cassandra Austen were a tight-knit pair, but as unmarried women, they were forced to spend their lives dependent on the kindness of their relatives in lieu of a husband. In Cassandra & Jane, author Jill Pitkeathley breathes new life into this dynamic and the secrets they shared as the world looked down its nose at the sisters during their lifetimes.

Literary history is full of legendary stories of friendships between great male authors, from Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. But history has cared far less about the friendships between women writers. Coauthors and real-life friends Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney decided to rebalance the scales and look into a variety of oft-ignored friendships throughout the history of the written word. For Jane Austen, they delve deep into the history books to explore her friendship with one of her family's servants, the playwright Anne Sharp.

Author Rachel Cohen turned to Jane Austen following a difficult period in her life that included the birth of her first child and the death of her father. Overwhelmed by the duelling emotions of grief and love, Cohen found Austen's novels to be a refuge and a guide during the storm. Austen Years delves into this period of her life and the ways that five of Austen's works shaped her, acting as part memoir, part literary love letter, and part critical analysis. 

Eliza Capot, Comtesse de Feuillide was the cousin and later sister-in-law of Austen, having married Jane's older brother Henry. Her first husband was a French Army captain of dubious origin who was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Eliza has often been cited as an inspiration for various characters in Austen's work, such as Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park and the calculating Lady Susan from the eponymous novella. Jill Pitkeathley returns to the world of Jane Austen with a novel that imagines Eliza’s scandalous life as a woman ahead of her time during an era when being so openly progressive was considered social suicide.

Jane Austen's private life has often been overlooked or dismissed. She is frequently portrayed as a solitary and reclusive figure. In real life, she had a tight inner circle that included her good friend Martha Lloyd, who collected recipes and was fascinated by domestic life. Zoe Wheddon's book details this frequently forgotten friendship and how their bond shaped both women, as well as Austen's iconic fiction.

Of the five Bennet sisters from Pride and Prejudice, Mary is often left by the wayside, viewed as the quiet bookish one who hid in the shadows cast by her more outgoing siblings. Janice Hadlow imagines a different story for Mary. What if the middle daughter found her path forward independent of her sisters? To do so, she must cast off the assumptions her own family has about her and find what truly makes her happy. Perhaps love is in the cards too. 

While the Bennet sisters wondered about their marriage prospects, the duty of taking care of the household fell to the unseen servants. Jo Baker's novel imagines what life was like for the domestic staff of the household. Sarah is an orphaned housemaid who spends her days cleaning the floors, emptying the chamber pots, and cleaning the dirt from Lizzie Bennet's petticoats. At Longbourn, there is much work to be done, and love is not just for the upper classes, as Sarah discovers when a mysterious new footman arrives and appears poised to upend her quiet and uneventful life.

In Pride and Prejudice, poor Anne de Bourgh is a rather pitiable figure. Quiet and isolated, she is sheltered from the world and forever resigned to spinsterhood. In Molly Greeley's novel, she gets a far brighter future. As a fussy baby, Anne was prescribed laudanum to keep her quiet, and now she lives life in a drugged haze, convinced she is ill beyond repair. After her father's death, she decides it's time to change. She breaks free from the medicine and her family and claims her inheritance, fleeing to London to find a future where she is the mistress of her own destiny.