Timed to the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, this six-part podcast (one for each of her novels) examines contradicting primary sources to find the real woman. Host Anna Walker journeys from tea rooms in Bath to Austen’s home in Hampshire so that she might answer Janeites’ burning questions: Was she pretty or plain? Was she an “affected, husband-hunting butterfly,” as one acquaintance alleged, or a wallflower? Walker’s mission is substantially hindered by the actions of Cassandra Austen, who, 25 years after her sister’s death, burned her vast trove of letters, robbing posterity of firsthand information. But Walker makes a valiant and entertaining effort to find answers. Along the way she revisits the themes and characters in Austen’s much-beloved creations. —Paulina Prosnitz