Hold on to your teacups, Jane Austen fans: A three-month tribute to the renowned author begins Sunday on PBS.

"The Complete Jane Austen" includes adaptations of her six finished novels, plus a dramatization of her life.

Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of Sunday night staple "Masterpiece" (formerly "Masterpiece Theatre"), said Austen's "limited canon" made an ideal television package — quite a feat for a woman who lived from 1775 to 1817.

Austen's heroines from 200 years ago translate well for the 21st century because they are intelligent and spunky and stand up to authority, said Marsha Huff, president of the Jane Austen Society of North America. "You can put them in modern dress and (they) still seem like people we understand," Huff said.

Four of the book-based pieces — "Persuasion," "Northanger Abbey," "Mansfield Park" and "Sense and Sensibility" — are new. "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma" have aired in past years on A&E.

Eaton says what makes this set of adaptations stand apart from other versions is a focus on the uncertainties that awaited an unmarried woman and on the passion that people felt for each other despite living in a "buttoned-up" society.

"The Complete Jane Austen" already has a built-in audience with fans of the author and regular viewers of "Masterpiece," Eaton said.

But, she added, the universal appeal of beautiful scenery, sympathetic characters and a good love story should attract viewers unfamiliar with the novels, plus younger generations who might not typically watch the series.

"I think that the novels are so open-ended and subtle that they allow us to speak to ourselves," said Tara Ghoshal Wallace, an associate professor and Austen scholar at George Washington University in the nation's capital.

One reason why Austen's novels are well-suited to television adaptation, Wallace said, is that Austen is "so good at dialogue."

"She's a scriptwriter's dream," Wallace said, "because there's so little to do."