This is a delightful novel with Jane Austen’s older sister Cassandra as heroine. It brought back happy memories of Jane Austen’s novels and I enjoyed recognising characteristics of her characters such as Mrs Bennet (Jane and Cassandra’s mother). There’s a lot of wit and charm in this book and it made me want to re-read all my favourite Austen novels. Cassandra is a wonderful heroine - warm and self-deprecating. You can’t help but feel sorry for her plight as an unmarried lady in Regency England but she is resolutely cheerful about it and feels that she has a happy life. Her close relationship with her sister Jane is beautifully drawn. This book celebrates families and friends - a warm-hearted, witty read. Highly recommended!

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

The title of Miss Austen immediately brings to mind Jane Austen: an author who is a favourite of millions (including myself). Conversely however, Gill Hornby’s novel centres around Cassandra Austen: Jane's elder sister and therefore, in Regency circles, the correct owner of the title.

We meet Cassandra Austen as an elderly lady, travelling to help a family member who has recently lost her father. As Isabella is unmarried, she must vacate her childhood home of the local vicarage and embark upon an uncertain future: a future that Cassandra is only too familiar with. However, we soon learn that Isabella’s village of Kintbury, and the vicarage itself, hold more than their fair share of Cassandra’s memories too.

Cassandra Austen outlived her much-loved sister Jane by 28 years and is often painted as the keeper of her sister’s memory. In her novel, Hornby also suggests that she was Jane’s keeper of secrets as well: entering the vicarage under the pretence of helping a grieving family member but really searching for any correspondence that may damage Jane’s image.
The letters she needs to uncover belong to Isabella’s mother, Eliza: a close friend and confidante of both Austen sisters. Eliza passed away some time ago, but Cassandra could never search the house while her husband was alive. Now that he has also passed, Cassandra has the perfect opportunity to search whilst helping Isabella vacate the vicarage.

Hornby opens the door to Cassandra’s life both before and after Jane’s death through Eliza’s house and letters: both factors are extremely emotive for Cassandra and provoke memories for our Miss Austen. Hornby, in turn, allows us to witness these memories, uncovering Cassandra and Jane’s successes, struggles and heartbreaks.
Through these glimpses of a former life we see that Cassandra was a sweet, romantic girl: eager to spend her life pleasing others and marrying her childhood sweetheart. Alas, tragedy strikes and Cassandra finds her life taking a different path, far from the one she imagined. Rather than rail against this change in her circumstances, Cassandra acts almost as if she was one of her sister’s characters: stoical in her grief and determined to keep her past promises; no matter how much time passes and what temptation arises.
I appreciated the strength that Hornby portrayed with Cassandra during these moments: however, I wasn’t gripped by Cassy and Tom’s relationship. I think if this had been built on earlier in the novel then Hornby could have really pulled on our heartstrings and dragged us further into her world.

Cassandra’s memories also allow the reader to meet the famous Jane and, although she is featured often in the story and is integral to the concept, I was pleased how Hornby did not allow Jane to take the limelight. This tale is very much about Cassandra and never deviates from that. Despite this, Hornby is excellent at portraying Cassandra’s devotion to her sister: particularly in later letters and memories. I also appreciated the little insights Hornby provides to the creation of Jane’s famous works, such as the inclusion of her sister-in-law’s traits to at least one unfavourable character of her creation.

Gill Hornby’s novel explores the lives of women in the Regency age in a unique way. In a complete juxtaposition to Jane Austen herself, the novel does not revolve around love interests but rather the love between sisters, friends and family. Romantic relationships are included, of course, but tend to only exist for character development. The use of flashbacks provide depth to characters as well as intrigue but Hornby does not distract herself from the present: even managing to challenge Cassandra’s initial perceptions.

The kindle format was quite messy in places but I imagine the book would be beautiful: I particularly liked the map and legacy information preceding the novel. All this hopeless romantic needs is a bit more depth behind Tom’s character and the engagement. Nevertheless, Hornby has managed to create an entirely new Miss Austen: one of whom I am eager to research further.

Gosh, where to start! this novel tells a story of what Jane Austen's life may have been like, told through the eyes of her sister, Cassandra, and their letters.

Cassandra has gone to stay with a relative after the death of a member of the family. It is a perfectly legitimate reason to visit, to sympathise and help Isabella pack up the house that goes with the position of vicar that now has passed to someone else. However, Cassandra has another reason for being there - the letters that passed between her and Isabella's deceased mother, and Jane. These cannot fall into the wrong hands, else the world will discover a side to Jane that Cassandra does not want it to know. And as they were very close and were rarely apart, the world will also find out all about her in the process.

Despite being a fan of Austen, I know little about her life, only that she did indeed write a lot of letters and that she died tragically young, unmarried, despite being asked. That being the case, it wasn't until I reached the useful Author's Note that I discovered just how accurate Gill Hornby has tried to be in her portrayal of the extended family and the movements of them around southern England. What we can't ever know, and yet Ms Hornby has done a fabulous job, is to know how far these relatives influenced Jane's characters in her novels. As we read we meet those characters in the flesh, Mary who has definite touches of Mary in Persuasion, Eliza shows far too much of a Mrs Dashwood the younger, their mother is Mrs Bennet personified. And yet there are still nuances in them that show them as mere influences, and not caricatures of those well known characters. Spotting them is such fun!

If you like Jane Austen, you will love this and forget even that it wasn't written by Jane herself. You come to know her, and Cassandra, learn so much about the realities of female existence in the first half of the eighteenth century, and an awful lot about vicarages.

Fabulous book, long, but fabulous.

I LOVED this book. Such good characters, I hadn't realised Jane was so highly strung, nor that Cassy was so like Jane in Pride and Prejudice! Sad in parts, hopeful in others. Recommended.

This is a very cleverly written book which skilfully creates an intimate setting in which to flesh out the usually secondary character of Cassandra Austen. The familiar facts about the Austen family are dealt with throughout the book but the author does such a good job of introducing Cassandra and holding the reader’s interest in her from the first chapter that instead of looking out for known events or charteristics of Jane and her family that they feel newly revealed in the course of the story. The use of letters works well in pulling the story back into time from the main events of the novel and does not feel at all gimmicky. Having read this book I feel that I can keep a better grip on remembering who the various members and connections of the Austen’s were and also like the way that the author has stuck to the way in which Jane Austen was actually pictured by those who knew her rather than the more sanitised version often presented today. An excellent read and a lovely book to gift.

I was intrigued by the premise of the book, but sadly it did not live up to expectations. It was too slow moving to be a gripping read. From a historical viewpoint it was interesting to see the plight of the unmarried and widowed women of a certain class in that society. Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

When I spotted this book's title, I assumed that it was another novelisation of Jane Austen's life. Like most people, when I hear the words 'Miss Austen', my immediate thought is of the author of Pride and Prejudice. It is so easy to forget that while Jane Austen was alive, she was not Miss Austen. That title went to her elder sister Cassandra. So many pages and pages have been wasted on whether or not Jane Austen ever knew love, which people in her life inspired her celebrated characters. It is ignored that by far the most significant person in Jane Austen's life was her beloved sister. Cassandra was Jane's confidante, her confessor, her first critic and her companion in all life's trials. After death, Cassandra was also her censor, destroying mountains of Jane's correspondence and silently shaping the narrative which we have before us. We forget Cassandra - she barely warrants a mention next to the dashing Henry or the rich Edward - but it is her shadow which guides so much of what we think we know about the Austen family. In this deeply wistful novel, Gill Hornby explores not only what Cassandra might have been trying to hide but also what it meant to be one of those women who fall within the cracks of history.

The book opens in 1840 with the elderly Miss Austen arriving at Kintbury, the home of the Fowle family, the relatives of her long-dead fiancé. The Reverend Fowle has recently died so his youngest unmarried daughter Isabella now has the unenviable task of packing up all the family's possessions to make way for the new incumbent. It is not a convenient time for house guests but Miss Austen is a woman on a mission. She needs to track down all of the letters she and her sister wrote to the late Eliza Fowle over the years and destroy them. Doing her best to side-step the hostile housemaid and indifferent hostess, Cassandra scours the house discreetly as long-faded memories bubble up to the surface once again.

Scholars and historians have long lamented that Cassandra Austen was such an effective gate-keeper of her sister's memory. There is so much that we do not know because Cassandra politely shut the door in our face. So many of Austen's opinions are hinted at in her work but we cannot know for certain. I find myself imagining a horde of rabid Austen fans snapping at Cassandra's heels and then her ignoring them entirely as she steps out of their way. Somehow though, in the act of effacing her sister's memory, Cassandra also seemed to erase herself. In Miss Austen, Hornby suggests that this was a conscious choice.

As the narrative switches back and forth between the past and Cassandra's present as an elderly woman, Hornby explores the disconnect between the past and the narrative we choose to live by. Cassandra remembers Tom Fowle's proposal and her own enthusiastic acceptance. She remembers the excitement of her first visit to Kintbury as the prospective bride of one of the sons of the household, a visit which contrasts sharply with her own unwelcome arrival as an old spinster to a dilapidated establishment. This short little tragedy is all that the world knows of Cassandra Austen. She was the girl who loved Tom Fowle. He died before he could marry her and she lived the rest of her life consumed by quiet grief for his memory. There is a dignity to this, a respectability to being the loyal not-quite-widow of a good man. Hornby's suggestion that this is a version of the narrative that Cassandra crafted herself is very thought-provoking. Cassandra had absolute faith in her sister's creative genius. She believed in Jane's writing and its long-term success. Is it so outlandish to believe that in censoring her sister's letters, Cassandra was protecting her own reputation too?

Miss Austen also explores what it meant to be an unmarried woman in Regency Britain. Cassandra feels a sympathy for Isabella Fowle who as another unwed daughter has very little agency around her own fate now that her last parent has died. As the two women sit down to read Persuasion together, Isabella expresses a hope that there will be a happy ending in store for Anne Eliot. Cassandra asks her what form that might take and Isabella responds that of course it would be marriage - what other sort of happy ending could there be? Cassandra wants to protest that she has found happiness in her own unmarried state but knows that the younger woman would never believe her.

Hornby is able to take a more unflinching view of the dividing line between the wives and the spinsters than Austen herself was ever really able to do. Elizabeth Austen has long been blamed for her husband Edward's lack of generosity towards his mother and sisters, an added cruelty since she does appear to have leaned quite heavily on Cassandra for support during her many confinements. But while Miss Austen imagines her insensitivities rather vividly, it is as nothing to the way in which it conjures up Mary Austen, sister-in-law from Hell. That lady bursts her way into the narrative due to having been sister to Eliza Fowle, mother to Isabella. Not only does she shatter the fragile peace which has grown between the remaining women of Kintbury but she also represents all that Cassandra fears - another version of the family narrative.

Mary Austen's status as villain of the family has been unassailable for years. She captures so many character aspects that we love to hate. She was of the Lloyd family, sister to long-term stalwart Martha Lloyd. Miss Austen suggests that the Austen women were fond of her and supported her as a prospective second wife to James Austen. That she should then turn on them once she had achieved the status of wife implies a back-stabbing personality that few could feel sympathy for. It also suggests that gaining the status of wife could bring out the very worst elements of someone's personality. Mary was the cruel stepmother, the inconstant friend, the shrew and all-round viper in the nest. As Austen fans we can rejoice in the delicious irony that it is the sister-in-law who Mary treated with such contempt who has managed to posthumously trash her reputation. I loved Hornby's implication that Mary was the inspiration for Pride and Prejudice's Mary Bennet - it seems entirely plausible.

I found myself thinking about all that Mary Austen represents. Her character type is so recognisable. She is the woman who has little to offer in herself and so takes undue delight in her relationship status. Bridget Jones decried the Smug Marrieds - these are Marys too. In my own single days, I met several Marys. They were the friends who would ask me what was going on in my life and when I explained that I had visited this place or gone to that event, they would give me a patronising smile and say things like 'Still single then?' or the more 'encouraging' - 'Well, that's how you meet people, by going out and doing interesting things'. All the time, that strange implication that single women must go about their business with the one-track obsession 'I Must Find A Man'. As someone now in a long-term relationship, I try to make sure that I never become a Mary - it's incredibly offensive.


Cassandra Austen's portrait of Mary Queen of Scots - often thought to be a portrait of Jane Austen
Yet in other ways, I wonder if Mary Austen gets an unfair press. Well, I don't wonder it. I think that part is obvious. She was even portrayed as a serial poisoner in The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen, bumping off a significant percentage of the Austen family to clear the way for her affair with Henry Austen. Biographies often put the blame on Mary for encouraging her husband to ask his father to retire so that they could take over the living, putting Jane out of her childhood home and dooming her to an itinerant existence in Bath for over a decade. No fictional portrayal of Mary ever forgets to put in plentiful smallpox scars. The woman gets away with nothing.

But then I remember the friend I had at university who sobbed uncontrollably that being single was a state of limbo. Ten years later, her viewpoint does not appear to have shifted. I can think of several extremely dear friends who have stuck it out with partners who came nothing near them in terms of intelligence or wit because the alternative was unappealing. If a capable, talented and charismatic twenty-first century woman can be afraid to go it alone, what must it have been like for Mary Austen, who was none of those things and stuck in the nineteenth century to boot? What if Mary was just insecure, knowing herself to be less intelligent than her sisters-in-law and thus forever on the defensive? One of the many beautiful things about Hornby's novel is that she both holds Mary to account but also allows space for a more nuanced reading of her character.

Miss Austen is a miniature masterpiece, rich in detail and emotional complexity. Cassandra looks back on her life, on her younger self who accepted Tom Fowle's proposal with such high hopes and looks down at the woman she is now, full of aches but still as determined as ever to fulfil her duty. In a strange way, its title tells a lie. It actually is all about Jane Austen despite it being set decades after her death. She is so clearly alive in her sister's love for her. Hornby's Jane Austen is quick-witted and sharp-tongued but also prone to low moods, particularly around her own uncertain fate. She was in need of protection. As Cassandra carefully edits the trace that the two of them will leave behind, she keeps tight hold of Jane. Ever the adoring elder sister, she protects Jane even after death. She watches in amusement as Jane's character defects are smoothed away by her nieces and nephews, noting the 'power upon reputation brought by an untimely death and a modicum of fame and success'. Not a word of protest will ever cross Cassandra's lips, even if it results in herself being dismissed as dull.

Miss Austen is a book of huge warmth and real emotional depth. I loved that this was a novel that could celebrate Jane Austen without ever suggesting that she was incomplete due to being unmarried. Through Cassandra, Hornby even suggests that Austen was not particularly cut out for matrimony and all that went with it. Miss Austen celebrates the cathartic power of being in the company of good women. It is women who will clear up the house at Kintbury so that the new vicar can take up his post. It is another of the Fowle women who runs a creche for the children of the local villagers. It is women who care for Cassandra when she falls ill. The world may be run by men but it is carried by women.

Of all my Austen in August reads, there was no other that made my nose tingle with tears like this one. There have been so many representations of Cassandra Austen as a life-long mourner with her face turned prematurely to the wall, someone who just gave up on life. Miss Austen reveals her strength, a woman who followed her conscience and followed her duty even as it rendered her invisible. She is only one of untold numbers of women who did their best for their families for little reward. Yet while most of those knew that they could hope for no more than to be remembered with kindness by the next generation and then to pass into oblivion, things were different for Cassandra. Hornby's novel made me see that Miss Austen had her eye on us, the future readers. She knew we would come and when we did, she was prepared. It feels only right that her valour be celebrated at last.

On the death of an old friend's husband, Cassandra Austen arrives at their home to help their unmarried daughter clear the house - but she's actually looking for correspondence from her sister Jane.

There's a fair bit of social commentary on the lot of the unmarried woman in the mid-19th century, and some interesting speculations on the character of Jane Austen. Hornby has obviously done her research, the story of what happened to the Austens after the death of their father is interesting (and reflected in Sense & Sensibility), and Cassandra herself a fairly strong character. Overall though, the commentary and underlying plot isn't anywhere near Jane Austen's own writing (which I assume is the style that was aimed for) and - to be honest - it was actually a little dull.

I really found it difficult to get into this book. I wanted to find out what happened, especially why Cassandra never married but it was drip fed so slowly I kept losing interest. I thought the book would make a pleasant change from my usual 'action' books but I was mistaken. I'm sure anyone interested in Jane Austen and her family would appreciate this book especially as Hornby has obviously done a lot of research. Good book, wrong reader.

I once swore never to read another novel that I saw as part of the Jane Austen industry. This was because most of them are so bad. I made an exception for Miss Austen and I was glad I did. It’s 1840 and Cassandra Austen, now in her sixties and without her beloved Jane, visits Kintbury, home of the Fowle family, whom she has known for years. The house is being cleared after the death of ‘father’; the work falls on unmarried daughter Isabella. Cassandra feels that she is unwelcome, a useless, interfering old woman and is shocked by Isabella’s inefficiency and her unfortunate lot as a single woman soon to lose her home. Gill Hornby cleverly manages to get in a lot of social comment of this kind without making it too obvious.

Cassandra’s real purpose in travelling to Kintbury is to seek out any letters which Jane may have written to the family and if necessary, to destroy them. It’s well known that Cassandra did destroy many of Jane’s letters but here we are given a reason for her decision: she doesn’t want Jane’s ‘melancholy’ (what we would call depression), to be revealed to future readers. The novel details her search for the letters and her attempts to hide what she is doing from the family and Isabella’s devoted and very nosy maid, Dinah, a wonderful character. These present activities are alternated with flashbacks to the happier days of the Austen family when Jane and the senior Austens were still alive.

I found all this very well written and believable. Cassandra is shown to be both intelligent and occasionally foolish but always brave in the face of the adversity she faced and able to find contentment living alone at Chawton in her last years.

I read this thanks to the publishers and NetGalley; it will be published in January 2020.

Gill Hornby’s portrayal of Cassandra Austen, Jane’s devoted older sister, has been well researched and spans her adult life, from her courtship by Tom Fowle who dies before they can marry, to her life as an elderly spinster, determined to rescue Jane’s private letters from a wider audience. Anyone with a passing interest in the life of Jane Austen knows part of this story and Hornby fills in the gaps through her depiction of members of the Austen’s extended family, bringing to life vividly the places in which they lived and the routines of daily life.
The author reminds us that the life of unmarried educated women with little financial independence was repetitive and often tedious as they acted as unpaid nurses, child minders and companions. However, other options were not necessarily preferable, as the real Jane Austen shows us in her novels, and Hornby includes in this one through her mention of loneliness, numerous pregnancies, death in labour and loveless marriage.
I really wanted to rave about this novel. Such a good idea to focus on the understandably side-lined Cassandra. The use of Regency dialogue is mostly convincing; the split narrative works well; the detailed research is expertly woven into the narrative. But … despite all this, nothing fresh emerges. No new light is cast on Cassandra’s position or character, nor on the other members of the Austen cast. Nothing that hasn’t already been explored about the position of women at this time is illuminated. At the end of the novel, I had an overwhelming feeling of, ‘What was that all in aid of?’ if you are looking for Austen-themed entertainment, this will do very well (as one of her characters might say). Anything more and you’ll end this read feeling a little dissatisfied.
My thanks to NetGalley and Century for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Well, this was totally different than I expected but I loved it.

I got so involved with the characters, lovely Cassandra who tried to help everyone, Jane who had her own issues, as well as the parents, brothers, wives etc. I was so sorry that Cassandra wasn't in the end able to be married, she would have made a wonderful wife and mother.

Of course all the time you're reading, you have to remember that these are real people who actually lived and experienced the things Gill Hornby wrote about.

I will look for more of her books.

Thank you Netgalley.

I really liked the idea of a book looking at Jane Austen through her sisters eyes, but found I didn’t get a real sense of the characters in any depth. I liked the letters between the sisters and their family and friends, and the moving from present to past. This book has obviously been very well researched, using the puzzle of why Cassandra cherry picked only the positive letters, and destroyed any that may have given an unflattering view of Jane, and even herself. Not to my taste but a good read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a much desired ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was completely absorbed by this novel based on the lives of the Austen sisters and almost shed a (dainty!) tear on several occasions.

This is more Cassandra’s story than Jane’s, which is all to the good since she was a treasure who enabled her sister’s talents to shine, as well as appearing to be an oddity of her time, actively choosing to remain independent of a husband following the death of her fiancée. I Googled to find out whether the Mr Hobday interlude was based on fact but came up empty-handed, sadly. I’d like to think she had other opportunities but stuck to her decision to live as a single woman out of choice.

I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this and have made a plan to visit Chawton cottage where Cassandra lives with Jane-now the Austen museum as a result of this fascinating read.

The style of writing was pitch-perfect to reflect the historical times and I loved the wicked barbs aimed at the pompous men who had most of the control of the Austen women’s lives. I hadn’t realised quite how dependent they were as unmarried women on the favour of their brothers- or perhaps more tellingly, on their brothers’ wives. As a happily single woman I felt genuine outrage at how Cassandra ( and other unmarried women in her extended family) were seen as unpaid nannies, financial burdens, pitiable cast-offs or spoiled, eccentric and obstinate spinsters.

Jane Austen’s beloved sister Cassandra is the central character in this novel. She was, in real life, very protective of Jane’s name and reputation so any letters written about her, or from her, that cast her in a less than glowing light were destroyed. This is the imagined story of how one such batch of letters were prevented from reaching public attention, and it combines the story of Cassandra reading through the letters to sort them, with her memories of the times each letter conjures up. In the course of these memories we gather much of Cassandra’s early adult life and how she came to stay as Miss Austen throughout her days.
This is a story about the women in Jane’s life, and is well told and based firmly in historical fact, with imagination filling the gaps. The women are easily imagined from the page, and the story is shot through with the love, humour, grief and frustrations that these women encountered in their lives. I thoroughly enjoyed my brief sojourn in Cassandra’s life and will look for more books by Gill Hornby.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a much desired ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A very sweet and readable imagining of Jane Austen's sister Cassandra, as she tries to protect Jane's reputation by rescuing personal correspondence from potential exploitation.

The story switches between the present, with Cassandra as an elderly spinster, and - through the letters - back into the romance of their youth where Jane was still struggling to publish her novels.

I enjoyed this a lot - a dramatization based around some historical facts, with some powerful characters - plenty to love and plenty to be irritated by just as in a Jane Austen novel.

As a committed Janeite I was thrilled to receive an ARC of this book and I was not disappointed. There are not enough words to really describe how much I loved this. I usually shy away from Jane Austen based fiction as it always, at least to me, seems to miss the mark.
Not so this excellent book.
“Miss Austen” is told through the the eyes of Cassandra Austen, “Miss Austen” indeed, and it alternates, through Janes reimagined missing letters between the past and present. It begins with Toms proposal to Cassandra and ends long after Janes death.
The authors prose is lyrical and moving, the story itself, slow, detailed and realistic. The writer brings to life Casandra, Mary and a whole host of other women in vivid detail.
Jane herself is elusive, hovering just out of reach as if the fictional Cassandra is prepared even here to go to any lengths to protect her sister, she gives little away.
Janes’ genius saturates the book but Jane herself is mostly left to our imagination. Cassandra however takes centre stage, being complex, flawed, brilliant and wonderfully human.
This book also offers a fascinating, detailed insight into women’s lives in Georgian Society and is clearly very well researched. Loneliness, dependence, poverty, love and duty are all given a human face in this book.
It is entertaining, making the reader both laugh and, when the end comes with little drama but with aching realism, cry.
I can not recommend this book highly enough.

Oh dear, I feel like I read a different book from all those enraptured reviewers in the blurb. I like the idea of writing Cassandra Austen's story, but actually found this a pale, and rather thinly-imagined homage to the Austen sisters. None of the characters really have much, er, character - not even Jane, and by the time I got to the end, I was still waiting for the story to start.

Hornby has mingled attention to the real biographies and letters with something imagined - yes, there's a kind focus on the lives of so-called spinsters but it lacks wit, insight and clarity - all those qualities Jane Austen had down beautifully. Lots of potential but ultimately a bland book that lacks flavour.