"When Kelly unleashes her inner literary critic, she delights readers with pages upon pages illustrating the enduring influence of Dickens’s fictional biography on his fiction. When it comes to literary analysis, Kelly isn’t just unimpeachable—she’s energizing. For the first time in years, I’m excited to revisit David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. I can picture Dickens scholars passing their big, bold but timeworn questions like a baton, which is an achievement in itself.
"A fresh take on the life and work of the beloved writer Jane Austen. Reveals the subversive rebel soul behind such towering classics as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park."
Praise for Jane Austen, the Secret Radical:
"Bracing. Plausible and vivid."
"A thoroughly engaging read.” - The Times Literary Supplement
"An important revisionary work. Helena Kelly provokes."
"Do we read Jane Austen’s novels as she intended? In this riveting literary-biographical study, the answer is a resounding no. An interpretive coup that is dazzling and dizzying . . . You won’t read Austen the same way again."
"Kelly uncovers and explains likely truths about Dickens's birthplace, his parents' financial struggles, his multiple infidelities, his "borrowing" of literary material, and his medical conditions. This detailed and well-documented study, confidently and entertainingly written, is perfect for Dickens's fans and literary historians alike."
"Kelly argues passionately and engagingly. Her critical method is . . . generating meaning from the smallest details of the novels."
"A thoroughly engaging read.” - The Times Literary Supplement
"An important revisionary work. Helena Kelly provokes."
"Do we read Jane Austen’s novels as she intended? In this riveting literary-biographical study, the answer is a resounding no. An interpretive coup that is dazzling and dizzying . . . You won’t read Austen the same way again."
"Essential. What this radical re-reading of the novels does so brilliantly is to exhort us all to chuck out the chintz, and the teacups, and all the traditional romantic notions about Austen’s work that have been fed to us for so long."
"Helena Kelly makes the case for Austen as an author steeped in the fear of war and revolution. Meticulously researched. Kelly shows us that the novels were about nothing more or less than the burning political questions of the day. A sublime piece of literary detective work that shows us once and for all how to be precisely the sort of reader that Austen deserves.
"Jane Austen, The Secret Radical is wonderful; a revelation. It’s difficult to stand out from the crowd when writing about such an influential figure, but Helena Kelly has certainly achieved that with this smart, knowing, perceptive book.
"Amply shows her deep research. She exposes a depth beyond what at first may seem to be silly characters. A fine-grained study that shows us how to read between the lines to discover the remarkable woman who helped transform the novel from trash to an absolute art form." - Kirkus Reviews
"Ambitious. Illuminating, provocative. Kelly offers a salutary argument for reading Austen’s novels with the serious attentiveness they invite and deserve."
2023-08-17
An iconic author left a legacy of lies.
British literary scholar Kelly, the author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, offers a brisk overview of the life of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), questioning many assumptions about the author that were presented in the first biography of Dickens by his friend and confidant John Forster. “In spite of the revelations it offered,” Kelly writes, Forster’s work “is less a biography than an exercise in posthumous brand management.” Diligent research and incisive close readings of Dickens’ writings ground Kelly’s investigation into the gaps, contradictions, and inconsistencies in the manipulated, self-serving story that many subsequent biographers have repeated: “Who and what can we trust in this narrative?” Dickens, she reveals, “started on the construction of his public persona almost as soon as he became famous. He was remarkable. He was self-made. He was the noble victim of untruthful rumours.” Kelly investigates the truth of some rumors, including plagiarism, antisemitism, racism, mental breakdown, and betrayals. She is puzzled by her subject’s effusive grieving over the death of a sister-in-law; his possible affair with another sister-in-law; and his virulent rejection of his wife. Regarding his claim of having been abandoned by his debt-riddled family and sent to work in a boot-polish shop when he was 12, Kelly finds evidence that he may have written advertising copy for the shop, instead. She wonders why he concealed the existence of a younger sister, who died at the age of 9 and may have had physical or mental disabilities. She appears, Kelly contends, in Dickens many depictions of characters with disabilities and of “an older child mourning the death of a younger sibling.” As for the author’s many health problems, she proposes that Dickens suffered from syphilis, contracted in the early 1840s, likely from extramarital affairs, and likely passed on to his wife.
A literary bio that deftly untangles truth from untruth.
