A big disappointment for Jane Austen fans is that her correspondence was destroyed by her sister Cassandra. Set in 1840, 23 years after Jane's death, Miss Austen imagines the time immediately preceding Cassandra's decision to burn the letters. Cassandra is visiting the Fowles home, where she expects to find letters from Jane that expose Jane's and her own private lives. Jane was a dear friend of Isabella Fowles, and Cassandra was engaged to a Fowles son.
As Cassandra finds and reads Jane's letters, the narrative flashes back to her time with her beloved sister. By the conclusion, readers understand Cassandra's motivation and respect it. The Cassandra that Hornby imagines — intelligent, practical, strong, complex, and stable — would have made an admirable character in a Jane Austen novel.
As in an Austen novel, Miss Austen includes a marriage plot, though not Cassandra's.
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