As Jane Austen’s Sister, Keeley Hawes Keeps a Controlled Burn

Being cast in the mini-series “Miss Austen” began Keeley Hawes’s first venture into the Jane Austen-verse. Hawes has a résumé thick with period pieces but, perhaps surprisingly, she had never done a screen adaptation of Austen’s work — a veritable cottage industry in Britain since the late 1930s.

“Of course, my husband played Mr. Darcy, so I feel like we’ve been in that world,” Hawes said, referring to the “Succession” star Matthew Macfadyen, who appeared in the 2005 film version of the classic Regency-era novel “Pride and Prejudice.”

“I was delighted to join in the Austen world, and especially to do it like this because it’s not one that has been done,” she continued. “But it feels like part of the canon.”

Indeed, Hawes is sneaking in through a side door: In the four-part “Miss Austen,” which premieres on Sunday as part of the PBS series “Masterpiece,” she plays a fictionalized version of Cassandra, Jane’s older sister and a somewhat controversial figure because she burned most of the writer’s letters.

Like the historical novel by Gill Hornby on which it is based, the show, adapted by Andrea Gibb, speculates on what led Cassandra to her fateful act and features some very Austen-like romantic subplots. A key development cleverly brings together a friend of Cassandra’s played by Rose Leslie and Jane’s posthumous novel “Persuasion.”