Six novels, hundreds of characters, thousands of bonnets — and one of literature’s most beloved authors. What does it take to turn “The Complete Jane Austen” into a television series?

Celebrating the Complete Jane Austen looks at a historic television event: Masterpiece’s “The Complete Jane Austen” — film adaptations of all six of Jane Austen’s novels. “The Complete Jane Austen” represents the first time that all of her works — “Persuasion,” “Northanger Abbey,” “Mansfield Park,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma” and “Sense and Sensibility” — have been presented in one television season.

Celebrating the Complete Jane Austen is hosted by NBC correspondent and “Weekend Today” co-anchor Lisa Daniels, an avid Austen fan. “As a journalist and NBC network correspondent, I’ve been trained to maintain a neutral attitude toward my subject. When it comes to Jane Austen, that’s impossible for me to do!” confesses Daniels.

Daniels tackles the questions the most ardent Janeite would ask: Two hundred years after her death, why do Jane Austen’s novels continue to relate to modern readers? What’s in these stories for the “Sex and the City” crowd (one answer: clothes!)? And what were the challenges in bringing these novels to television?

From the Regency era to today, there are more social similarities than meet the eye. “How could Jane Austen’s 18th-century mind create characters that we read again and again now? I think it’s because her heroines are very modern. They are women who are trying to find themselves, trying to do the right things by who they are, in their way. And that is a primary concern to women now,” notes Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of Masterpiece and “The Complete Jane Austen.”

The behind-the-scenes process is captured through interviews with Eaton and Andrew Davies, the acclaimed screenwriter responsible for the television adaptations of “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” “Northanger Abbey” and “Sense and Sensibility.” Additional expertise about Austen herself is provided by Dr. Marcia Folsom, professor and chair of humanities and writing at Wheelock College (Boston, Massachusetts), editor of several books about Jane Austen and a frequent Austen lecturer.