Acclaimed author Jane Austen will be turning 250 this year with plenty of celebrations taking place across Britain to mark the life and works of the Pride and Prejudice writer.
Along with the celebrations, the will be airing four-part drama series Miss Austen, based on the 2020 novel of the same name by Gill Hornby and exploring why her sister Cassandra Austen (played by Keeley Hawes) burnt Jane’s (Pasty Ferran) personal letters after the writer’s death.
The series will be airing on Sunday, February 2 at 9.05pm on BBC One with fans getting the entire boxset from 6am on the same day for those hoping to binge it.
Many fans are already curious to know about Jane and how the famous author lived out her last days before her demise, reported the .
Jane died on July 18, 1817 at the young age of 41 at 8 College Street, Winchester at 4.30am with her beloved sister Cassandra beside her.
She perished from an unspecified illness, however, there have been theories about what caused her death as well as her health issues.
The Emma and Persuasion writer is widely thought to have succumbed to either Addison’s or cancer - Hodgkin’s disease.
Symptoms of Addison’s disease include skin discolouration, low mood, fatigue, muscle weakness, temperature, nausea and vomiting, among others.
Blood cancer Hodgkin lymphoma can lead to fatigue, fevers, itchy skin and a feeling of breathlessness.
According to a 2021 interview on Chawton House’s website, Michael D Sanders, Emeritus Consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital in London hypothesised Jane died from the chronic autoimmune disease Lupus rather than Addison’s or Hodgkin’s disease as many believe was the case.
Sanders revisited Jane’s surviving correspondence, including the letter in which she spoke about her skin changing colour to “black and white and every wrong colour”.
Lupus causes the immune system to mistakenly attack the body’s own tissue with antibodies after identifying them as foreign entities, leading to inflammation.
According to the , symptoms of Lupus include a skin rash, fatigue, joint pain, a high temperate, depression and , among other things.
He ruled out Addison’s which had been suggested by British physician Zachary Cope back in 1964. Sanders said Jane’s “multicoloured” and “transient” lesions on her face weren’t “typical” of the disease.
Moreover, Jane recovered somewhat from her illness but Addison’s would have been progressive with no comeback.
Instead, Sanders said she had the two main symptoms of Lupus, which were pigmentation to the face and recovery.
He went on to say how Lupus still disproportionately affected women today.
Meanwhile, crime writer Lindsay Ashford theorised back in 2011 how Jane may have died from arsenic poisoning which also causes patches of skin to discolour.
Ashford said how Jane’s symptoms in her letters corresponded to those of arsenic poisoning and described it as an “amazing correlation”, the Guardian reported at the time.
The author suggested Jane may have been given medication containing arsenic.
Ashford explored her theory in her 2011 novel The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen and even claimed there could have been foul play involved, and suggested “there could have been a motive for murder”.
Interestingly, The British Library in 2017 looked into whether Jane developed cataracts from accidental arsenic poisoning and analysed her spectacles for clues but exercised caution around any firm theories relating to this and her death.
Professor Janet Todd, the editor for the Cambridge edition of Jane Austen, rejected Ashford’s theory and said murder was impossible and said she doubted whether Jane would have been “poisoned intentionally”.
Professor Todd did say it was “odd” Jane passed away so young but asserted no one knew what the writer had died of without digging up the remains.
Todd said disinterring Jane from her resting place in Winchester Cathedral for modern forensic analysis “would not be appreciated”.
Miss Austen airs on BBC One on Sunday, February 2 at 9.05pm and will be available as a boxset on BBC iPlayer from 6am
