Godmersham Park 

Gill Hornby

Cornerstone, £14.99, 416 pages

All the sins of empire are being remembered nowadays, heroes judged and found wanting. Yet Jane Austen – whose family had myriad links to the sugar islands, whose brother commanded Britain’s naval forces during the second Anglo-Burmese war, whose cousin was god-daughter to a governor-general of India—has proved curiously immune. A Netflix adaptation of Persuasion is due out later this year and television bosses were convinced by fan pressure to reverse their decision to cancel Sanditon, a series based on a fragment Austen left unfinished at her death. Perhaps Austen’s sheer popularity renders her uncancellable; perhaps the view that she is not just apolitical, but ahistorical, still prevails. Or perhaps the public aren’t interested in Jane’s relatives.