WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Miss Austen. Miss Austen debuted on the BBC this evening (Sunday, February 2) and immersed audiences into the world of Regency England, serving up a tale of repressed love and regret. The four-part drama focused on the life of Cassandra Austen (played by Keeley Hawes) as she sought out her younger sister Jane’s (Patsy Ferran) personal correspondence before they could be used as part of any posthumous biographies.

The narrative drifted between the past and the present as Cassandra reminisced on her younger days through Jane’s letters after she found them. In the series, a young Cassandra (Synnøve Karlsen) was engaged to Tom Fowle (Calam Lynch) but the humble curate died at sea while on a voyage to make his fortune. Cassandra was heartbroken and never married after promising in a church to wed no other man. Much like the TV series, Tom Fowle did indeed die of yellow fever while trying to secure a fortune for him and Cassandra.

In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, the Chair of The Jane Austen Society Heather Thomas explained more about the history of Cassandra’s lost love. She said how the Austens had known the Fowles of Kintbury “forever and ever” and described Tom’s decision to go on the dangerous journey to the West Indies to secure wealth as “an offer you couldn’t refuse”. “Men were short because of the war with France - the Napoleonic Wars. An awful lot of men were called up voluntarily or involuntarily and there was a general shortage of men.

“So having fallen for Tom relatively young - not young for that age, she was about 20 - and then having lost him to Yellow Fever and he was buried at sea, she never really turned her head to anybody else, which is sad really.”. Although there are faint echoes of Cassandra’s lost love story in the novel Persuasion, Thomas said author Austen liked to “try out different types of heroines in her books” and Ann Elliott was more of a “shy and retiring” character.

She elaborated: “I think there may be a bit of Cassandra’s experiences but it was so common to lose people to illness and accident - married or engaged. “It was common to die young, so I’m not sure you can say with confidence Cassandra’s experiences are a model for Ann Elliott.”. This year marks Jane Austen’s 250th birthday and to mark the occasion, The Jane Austen Society is asking fans to get in touch and make a recording of what the author means to them.