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Jane Austen, the Secret Radical
'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.' Caroline Criado-Perez, Guardian Almost everything we think we know about Jane Austen is wrong. Her novels don't confine themselves to grand houses and they were not written just for readers' enjoyment. She writes about serious subjects and her books are deeply subversive. We just don't read her properly - we haven't been reading her properly for 200 years. Jane Austen, The Secret Radical puts that right. In her first, brilliantly original book, Austen expert Helena Kelly introduces the reader to a passionate woman living in an age of revolution; to a writer who used what was regarded as the lightest of literary genres, the novel, to grapple with the weightiest of subjects – feminism, slavery, abuse, the treatment of the poor, the power of the Church, even evolution – at a time, and in a place, when to write about such things directly was seen as akin to treason. Uncovering a radical, spirited and political engaged Austen, Jane Austen, The Secret Radical will encourage you to read Jane, all over again.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 3, 2016
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4752 people want to read
About the author
Helena Kelly
9 books29 followersHELENA KELLY grew up in North Kent. She has taught classics and English Literature at the University of Oxford. She lives in Oxford with her husband and son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 377 reviews
October 20, 2017
Unfortunately, there is a certain stigma attached to Austen’s works. On the surface, Austen is a sentimental romance novelist who writes about love and relationships and their place within society. Her stories are often perceived as fluff pieces with the romance always prevailing in the end. But beyond that she is
so
much more.
Austen is ruthless, brilliant and tenacious. I find it extremely entertaining to read the early reviews she received for her books. The critics who wrote them clearly had no idea of her genius. They, too, only saw the surface level of her writing. All suggestions of irony, bitterness and sarcasm were completely wasted on their deaf ears. They saw her books as instructional, beneficial even, for women readers of the age, for those who “needed” to learn to behave. In reality, Austen completely tears society apart with all its ridiculous nuances and expectations of propriety.
I laugh out loud when I read Austen because I hear the words of an angry women lashing back at the stuffy society in which she existed. Helena Kelly sees this too and terms such ideas as radical, which is a very fair point because Austen was radical. She wrote against the conventions and mocked the bourgeoisie with their fixations on money, status and position. Spend some time with Austen, read her words, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. More often than not the romances she writes up are mere plot devises. It’s her critique of society and her masterful narration which makes her such an excellent writer.
Here's my favourite quote from her:
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Northanger Abbey
And now she's even on English currency:
So this is a good bit of writing that brings this all to the surface; certainly, worth a read.
Austen is ruthless, brilliant and tenacious. I find it extremely entertaining to read the early reviews she received for her books. The critics who wrote them clearly had no idea of her genius. They, too, only saw the surface level of her writing. All suggestions of irony, bitterness and sarcasm were completely wasted on their deaf ears. They saw her books as instructional, beneficial even, for women readers of the age, for those who “needed” to learn to behave. In reality, Austen completely tears society apart with all its ridiculous nuances and expectations of propriety.
I laugh out loud when I read Austen because I hear the words of an angry women lashing back at the stuffy society in which she existed. Helena Kelly sees this too and terms such ideas as radical, which is a very fair point because Austen was radical. She wrote against the conventions and mocked the bourgeoisie with their fixations on money, status and position. Spend some time with Austen, read her words, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. More often than not the romances she writes up are mere plot devises. It’s her critique of society and her masterful narration which makes her such an excellent writer.
Here's my favourite quote from her:
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Northanger Abbey
And now she's even on English currency:
So this is a good bit of writing that brings this all to the surface; certainly, worth a read.
July 21, 2023
2023 Reread
What I did not expect on rereading this book was to be more impressed with it than I was the first time. The unforced errors were still there, the silly chapter openings, the overinterpretations, but I was repeatedly amazed by her ability to notice tiny, trivial moments in Austen’s life and writing and unravel their implications. A very careful reader in Austen’s own day might have picked up on many of the hints Kelly highlights, but it’s pretty astonishing that a twenty-first-century reader could do so. It made me realize the very thorough work that went into this book, as well as her gift for close reading. I am also impressed by her ability to convince me of a point of view I scoffed at when I first read it, through the patient accretion of evidence.
It’s a pity that the weakest chapter—about Northanger Abbey—comes first, and that its greatest weakness, a fondness for reading sexual imagery into the text, is repeated in the second chapter. But from that point on Kelly settles into playing to her strengths, and the book offers a coherent and at least partly credible take on a writer far deeper than most give her credit for. I learned a lot, I saw Austen with fresh eyes, and that’s a lot for me to say after a lifetime of immersion. She even makes me want to reread Emma, and I didn’t think anyone could achieve that!
Original Review
The publicists of Helena Kelly’s Jane Austen: The Secret Radical would have us believe that the book is itself a radical document—an upending of all we “know” about Jane Austen. If the “we” envisioned here means fans who have come to Jane Austen through the filmed adaptations and other popular-culture manifestations, those publicists are doubtless correct. Austen scholars, by contrast, will find less that is new or surprising, along with some ideas that are overstated or simply odd. Still, Austen scholars are few and Austen fans are legion, so this book, pitched as it is for the general reader, arguably has a place. Its claims are worth debating at least.
As one who has never considered Austen a writer of romances or even a Romantic (in the sense of the literary movement of the early nineteenth century), I am predisposed to like any book that aims to situate the novels in the philosophical and ideological debates of her day. Despite leading a private, mostly rural life, Austen was well informed and lived in a family that read and thought widely, a family that argued ideas over the dinner table. I am also a reader who finds many hints in Austen’s novels that she was not a conservative upholder of the established Church and established social order, contrary to the arguments of her family members and scholars such as Marilyn Butler. At the very least, she found the verities of class structure and institutional religion problematic and often mockworthy. So a book that combs through the novels looking for evidence of Austen’s radical heart finds a receptive audience here.
And I found plenty of insight in Kelly’s surveys of the novels to intrigue me. For example, it had not occurred to me to look at Emma through the lens of the enclosure controversy, or Persuasion in the context of the kinds of doubts that arise when people start to encounter the logic of evolution. Kelly was persuasive in many of her arguments, and I admire her gift for finding the unexpected in the familiar (e.g., her discussion of Austen’s obituaries and speculations about how she came to be buried in Winchester Cathedral was fascinating).
But there are downsides. The structure of the book is peculiar, and designed to give fodder for those looking to disparage. Each chapter opens with a little speculative vignette from inside Austen’s head, supposed to give us insight into what she was thinking about at the time she composed each novel. Right there, Kelly is going to lose just about every serious Austen scholar. She claims rigor in basing biographical information on known fact instead of family tradition (and readers of the biographies would do well to be cautious about family traditions regarding Austen’s life and works) but she does not extend the same rigor to her readings of the novels—there are several unforced errors here. Also, she gives no indication that she has read much literary criticism of Austen’s work, which allows critics to dismiss her as a lightweight. The publicists didn’t help by branding the book as revolutionary; many of its ideas can be found in that neglected body of scholarship. And she has a tendency to get overly enthusiastic and take her arguments beyond a reasonable point (especially when they are tainted with Freudian nonsense). In several chapters she mistakes the context of a novel for the central point of the novel. Points that were initially interesting sometimes devolve into the ridiculous.
I would hope that these vulnerabilities would not discourage too many readers, however, because there is much of value here. It’s a rare talent to be able to stand outside received wisdom and see familiar material with fresh eyes; Kelly is a pure outside-the-box thinker. And I think she’s right on many points. Mansfield Park really is about slavery—I would even take her claim further and say that Fanny Price herself is to be seen as for all intents and purposes a slave. Sense and Sensibility really does challenge the practices and assumptions of primogeniture. And so on.
Kelly argues in lucid terms for a thinking, challenging, contrarian-minded Jane Austen who has a tremendous gift for subtlety and who makes her points through deceptively cozy, everyday stories. The marriage plot is for Austen a Trojan horse, infiltrating her ideas into the reader’s consciousness without our fully realizing it. Is she lots of fun to read? Yeah, that too. But many or most of her readers also need to be alive to the fact that she’s more than that, and Kelly’s book—even when you might disagree with it or laugh at the overreaches—will help you get there.
What I did not expect on rereading this book was to be more impressed with it than I was the first time. The unforced errors were still there, the silly chapter openings, the overinterpretations, but I was repeatedly amazed by her ability to notice tiny, trivial moments in Austen’s life and writing and unravel their implications. A very careful reader in Austen’s own day might have picked up on many of the hints Kelly highlights, but it’s pretty astonishing that a twenty-first-century reader could do so. It made me realize the very thorough work that went into this book, as well as her gift for close reading. I am also impressed by her ability to convince me of a point of view I scoffed at when I first read it, through the patient accretion of evidence.
It’s a pity that the weakest chapter—about Northanger Abbey—comes first, and that its greatest weakness, a fondness for reading sexual imagery into the text, is repeated in the second chapter. But from that point on Kelly settles into playing to her strengths, and the book offers a coherent and at least partly credible take on a writer far deeper than most give her credit for. I learned a lot, I saw Austen with fresh eyes, and that’s a lot for me to say after a lifetime of immersion. She even makes me want to reread Emma, and I didn’t think anyone could achieve that!
Original Review
The publicists of Helena Kelly’s Jane Austen: The Secret Radical would have us believe that the book is itself a radical document—an upending of all we “know” about Jane Austen. If the “we” envisioned here means fans who have come to Jane Austen through the filmed adaptations and other popular-culture manifestations, those publicists are doubtless correct. Austen scholars, by contrast, will find less that is new or surprising, along with some ideas that are overstated or simply odd. Still, Austen scholars are few and Austen fans are legion, so this book, pitched as it is for the general reader, arguably has a place. Its claims are worth debating at least.
As one who has never considered Austen a writer of romances or even a Romantic (in the sense of the literary movement of the early nineteenth century), I am predisposed to like any book that aims to situate the novels in the philosophical and ideological debates of her day. Despite leading a private, mostly rural life, Austen was well informed and lived in a family that read and thought widely, a family that argued ideas over the dinner table. I am also a reader who finds many hints in Austen’s novels that she was not a conservative upholder of the established Church and established social order, contrary to the arguments of her family members and scholars such as Marilyn Butler. At the very least, she found the verities of class structure and institutional religion problematic and often mockworthy. So a book that combs through the novels looking for evidence of Austen’s radical heart finds a receptive audience here.
And I found plenty of insight in Kelly’s surveys of the novels to intrigue me. For example, it had not occurred to me to look at Emma through the lens of the enclosure controversy, or Persuasion in the context of the kinds of doubts that arise when people start to encounter the logic of evolution. Kelly was persuasive in many of her arguments, and I admire her gift for finding the unexpected in the familiar (e.g., her discussion of Austen’s obituaries and speculations about how she came to be buried in Winchester Cathedral was fascinating).
But there are downsides. The structure of the book is peculiar, and designed to give fodder for those looking to disparage. Each chapter opens with a little speculative vignette from inside Austen’s head, supposed to give us insight into what she was thinking about at the time she composed each novel. Right there, Kelly is going to lose just about every serious Austen scholar. She claims rigor in basing biographical information on known fact instead of family tradition (and readers of the biographies would do well to be cautious about family traditions regarding Austen’s life and works) but she does not extend the same rigor to her readings of the novels—there are several unforced errors here. Also, she gives no indication that she has read much literary criticism of Austen’s work, which allows critics to dismiss her as a lightweight. The publicists didn’t help by branding the book as revolutionary; many of its ideas can be found in that neglected body of scholarship. And she has a tendency to get overly enthusiastic and take her arguments beyond a reasonable point (especially when they are tainted with Freudian nonsense). In several chapters she mistakes the context of a novel for the central point of the novel. Points that were initially interesting sometimes devolve into the ridiculous.
I would hope that these vulnerabilities would not discourage too many readers, however, because there is much of value here. It’s a rare talent to be able to stand outside received wisdom and see familiar material with fresh eyes; Kelly is a pure outside-the-box thinker. And I think she’s right on many points. Mansfield Park really is about slavery—I would even take her claim further and say that Fanny Price herself is to be seen as for all intents and purposes a slave. Sense and Sensibility really does challenge the practices and assumptions of primogeniture. And so on.
Kelly argues in lucid terms for a thinking, challenging, contrarian-minded Jane Austen who has a tremendous gift for subtlety and who makes her points through deceptively cozy, everyday stories. The marriage plot is for Austen a Trojan horse, infiltrating her ideas into the reader’s consciousness without our fully realizing it. Is she lots of fun to read? Yeah, that too. But many or most of her readers also need to be alive to the fact that she’s more than that, and Kelly’s book—even when you might disagree with it or laugh at the overreaches—will help you get there.
February 9, 2017
Consider carefully before you read this book!
If you are happy reading Jane Austen’s novels as the Regency era love stories that I have always believed them to be, then don’t read this book. It might help you to understand some of the influences that affected Jane’s writings which might lead to a greater enjoyment of her work, but it is also possible that you might not like everything you discover. If you take all Kelly’s ideas seriously, this book could completely undermine the way that you look at some of Jane’s plots and characters.
Why did I read this book?
I love Jane Austen’s novels and I know something of Jane’s life and period. I certainly ought to, as one chapter in my new book (What Regency Women Did For Us) is given over to my favourite author! However, I am not a literary critic and have never sought to pull Jane Austen’s novels to pieces in search for greater meaning. I accepted this review copy on the basis that it promised new insights into the novels through greater knowledge of the period in which Jane Austen wrote. As a Regency historian, I decided to hear what Kelly had to say.
The format
The book opens with a chapter entitled ‘The Authoress’. An interesting decision to use the word ‘authoress’ rather than ‘author’. After all, Pride and Prejudice was originally described as being ‘by the author of Sense and Sensibility’(1) not the authoress.
This is followed by a chapter devoted to each of Jane’s novels and a final one looking at her death. Each of these chapters begins with a fictional section based on one of Jane’s letters which helped set the theme for the chapter. Although I found the book readable in style, I did not like all the content!
Kelly argues that Jane’s novels are much more than love stories – they are revolutionary and tackle subjects which would have been seen as highly controversial at the time they were written. Different chapters look at subjects such as the failure of men to provide for their female relatives, the corruption of both the clergy and the nobility, the slave trade, and poverty and the corn laws.
Though I am ready to accept that Jane was highly influenced by the times in which she wrote, I remain unconvinced that she wrote just to be radical, dressed up in a story. To challenge and instruct as well as entertain maybe, but I personally still believe she was first and foremost a storyteller.
More than a mock Gothic novel?
Although I have read The Mysteries of Udolpho, I can’t say I know it very well, therefore I appreciated Kelly pointing out that the links between Mrs Radcliffe’s Gothic novel and Northanger Abbey were much stronger than I had realised. Jane’s original readers would have seen all the parallels that the modern reader misses, and these would have been even stronger if the book had been published straight after it had been written, rather than years later, after Jane’s death.
However, Kelly lost me completely when she started suggesting that all the bedroom scenes in Northanger Abbey had sexual connotations. I prefer to leave Northanger Abbey as a clever play on the Gothic novel.
The irresponsibility of men?
In the chapter on Sense and Sensibility, Kelly suggests that Jane was indirectly criticising the men in her family for failing to provide adequately for the women who were dependent on them – Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their mother. I already knew how hard Jane had found it when her father suddenly decided to give up the living at Steventon and uproot his family from the only home they had ever known and settle them in Bath, but I had never really considered the alternative. Kelly writes that Jane’s father need not have given up the majority of his income to his eldest son – who, by the way, already had the means to support himself – but could have hired a curate to help him and retained most of the income to support his wife and daughters. Another question that I had never asked was why, after the death of Jane’s father, it took her rich brother Edward Knight four years to offer his mother and sisters a permanent home.
However, I found little sympathy with Kelly when she began trying to read sexual meanings into Edward Ferrars’ behaviour and implied he was no better than Willoughby. It certainly does not help me enjoy the novel better. Edward might not be a Darcy, but he is a man who has been downtrodden by his mother, and if Eleanor loves him, who are we to question her choice? Despite what Kelly suggests, I retain my right to believe that Edward and Eleanor could live happily ever after.
Hidden depths to Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is my favourite book and I dare anyone to spoil it for me! Fortunately, Kelly does not try to undermine the characters of Darcy and Elizabeth, but rather draws attention to the underlying prejudices of the novel which are far more revolutionary than a modern audience appreciates.
In Jane’s time, there were deep-rooted prejudices in favour of the nobility and the clergy. Pride and Prejudice undermines both, in the persons of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr Collins. Could Lady Catherine really be a sensible person to appoint Mr Collins to the living at her disposal and then actually welcome his irksome company? When the contrast is drawn between the noble Lady Catherine’s behaviour and Elizabeth Bennet’s aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, who are in trade, the reader’s conclusion is inevitable: good breeding has nothing to do with titles.
More in a name
Mansfield Park has always seemed a more serious book to me than Jane’s other novels, but I had not made the connection between the names used in the book and the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. The very name of the book – Mansfield – links the book to Lord Mansfield whose judgement ‘removed the practical basis’(2) on which slavery rested, and the hated Mrs Norris shares her name with a notorious slave trader.
Misquoting the text
When Kelly is discussing Willoughby’s visit to the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility when he believes Marianne to be dying, Kelly states that Willoughby “turns up at what he thinks is Marianne’s death-bed intoxicated (‘yes, I am very drunk’)”(3), quoting Willoughby’s own words. However, she totally disregards his next words – ‘A pint of porter with my cold beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me’(4) – indicating that he was being sarcastic and most definitely in his right mind and not drunk.
Kelly also talks of Edward Ferrars’ education and writes “Why send him to Exeter?”(5) But surely it was not Exeter where Edward was educated but at Longstaple near Plymouth at the house of Lucy Steele’s uncle, Mr Pratt?
A very large handful
When discussing titles in the chapter on Pride and Prejudice, Kelly refers to Lady Catherine de Bourgh as the daughter of an earl and claims “there are no more than a handful of them in England.”(6) An earl is indeed the third highest title in the British peerage after duke and marquess as Kelly states, but whilst there were less than 20 English dukedoms and a similar number of marquessates at the start of the Regency, there were decidedly more than ‘a handful’ of earls. According to Debrett’s, there were about 90 English earldoms alone at the start of the Regency – a very large handful!(7)
A mixed bag
There are many more comments I could make on this book which, in my opinion, was a mixed bag of fascinating insights and unhelpful suggestions that I could have done without. You may discover some real gems that take you closer to Jane’s world, but if you love Jane’s novels as the love stories they are, then you might not want to take the risk!
Notes
(1) From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
(2) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p176
(3) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p96
(4) From Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)
(5) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p99
(6) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p135
(7) From Debrett’s The Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1820)
If you are happy reading Jane Austen’s novels as the Regency era love stories that I have always believed them to be, then don’t read this book. It might help you to understand some of the influences that affected Jane’s writings which might lead to a greater enjoyment of her work, but it is also possible that you might not like everything you discover. If you take all Kelly’s ideas seriously, this book could completely undermine the way that you look at some of Jane’s plots and characters.
Why did I read this book?
I love Jane Austen’s novels and I know something of Jane’s life and period. I certainly ought to, as one chapter in my new book (What Regency Women Did For Us) is given over to my favourite author! However, I am not a literary critic and have never sought to pull Jane Austen’s novels to pieces in search for greater meaning. I accepted this review copy on the basis that it promised new insights into the novels through greater knowledge of the period in which Jane Austen wrote. As a Regency historian, I decided to hear what Kelly had to say.
The format
The book opens with a chapter entitled ‘The Authoress’. An interesting decision to use the word ‘authoress’ rather than ‘author’. After all, Pride and Prejudice was originally described as being ‘by the author of Sense and Sensibility’(1) not the authoress.
This is followed by a chapter devoted to each of Jane’s novels and a final one looking at her death. Each of these chapters begins with a fictional section based on one of Jane’s letters which helped set the theme for the chapter. Although I found the book readable in style, I did not like all the content!
Kelly argues that Jane’s novels are much more than love stories – they are revolutionary and tackle subjects which would have been seen as highly controversial at the time they were written. Different chapters look at subjects such as the failure of men to provide for their female relatives, the corruption of both the clergy and the nobility, the slave trade, and poverty and the corn laws.
Though I am ready to accept that Jane was highly influenced by the times in which she wrote, I remain unconvinced that she wrote just to be radical, dressed up in a story. To challenge and instruct as well as entertain maybe, but I personally still believe she was first and foremost a storyteller.
More than a mock Gothic novel?
Although I have read The Mysteries of Udolpho, I can’t say I know it very well, therefore I appreciated Kelly pointing out that the links between Mrs Radcliffe’s Gothic novel and Northanger Abbey were much stronger than I had realised. Jane’s original readers would have seen all the parallels that the modern reader misses, and these would have been even stronger if the book had been published straight after it had been written, rather than years later, after Jane’s death.
However, Kelly lost me completely when she started suggesting that all the bedroom scenes in Northanger Abbey had sexual connotations. I prefer to leave Northanger Abbey as a clever play on the Gothic novel.
The irresponsibility of men?
In the chapter on Sense and Sensibility, Kelly suggests that Jane was indirectly criticising the men in her family for failing to provide adequately for the women who were dependent on them – Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their mother. I already knew how hard Jane had found it when her father suddenly decided to give up the living at Steventon and uproot his family from the only home they had ever known and settle them in Bath, but I had never really considered the alternative. Kelly writes that Jane’s father need not have given up the majority of his income to his eldest son – who, by the way, already had the means to support himself – but could have hired a curate to help him and retained most of the income to support his wife and daughters. Another question that I had never asked was why, after the death of Jane’s father, it took her rich brother Edward Knight four years to offer his mother and sisters a permanent home.
However, I found little sympathy with Kelly when she began trying to read sexual meanings into Edward Ferrars’ behaviour and implied he was no better than Willoughby. It certainly does not help me enjoy the novel better. Edward might not be a Darcy, but he is a man who has been downtrodden by his mother, and if Eleanor loves him, who are we to question her choice? Despite what Kelly suggests, I retain my right to believe that Edward and Eleanor could live happily ever after.
Hidden depths to Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is my favourite book and I dare anyone to spoil it for me! Fortunately, Kelly does not try to undermine the characters of Darcy and Elizabeth, but rather draws attention to the underlying prejudices of the novel which are far more revolutionary than a modern audience appreciates.
In Jane’s time, there were deep-rooted prejudices in favour of the nobility and the clergy. Pride and Prejudice undermines both, in the persons of Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mr Collins. Could Lady Catherine really be a sensible person to appoint Mr Collins to the living at her disposal and then actually welcome his irksome company? When the contrast is drawn between the noble Lady Catherine’s behaviour and Elizabeth Bennet’s aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, who are in trade, the reader’s conclusion is inevitable: good breeding has nothing to do with titles.
More in a name
Mansfield Park has always seemed a more serious book to me than Jane’s other novels, but I had not made the connection between the names used in the book and the campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. The very name of the book – Mansfield – links the book to Lord Mansfield whose judgement ‘removed the practical basis’(2) on which slavery rested, and the hated Mrs Norris shares her name with a notorious slave trader.
Misquoting the text
When Kelly is discussing Willoughby’s visit to the Dashwoods in Sense and Sensibility when he believes Marianne to be dying, Kelly states that Willoughby “turns up at what he thinks is Marianne’s death-bed intoxicated (‘yes, I am very drunk’)”(3), quoting Willoughby’s own words. However, she totally disregards his next words – ‘A pint of porter with my cold beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me’(4) – indicating that he was being sarcastic and most definitely in his right mind and not drunk.
Kelly also talks of Edward Ferrars’ education and writes “Why send him to Exeter?”(5) But surely it was not Exeter where Edward was educated but at Longstaple near Plymouth at the house of Lucy Steele’s uncle, Mr Pratt?
A very large handful
When discussing titles in the chapter on Pride and Prejudice, Kelly refers to Lady Catherine de Bourgh as the daughter of an earl and claims “there are no more than a handful of them in England.”(6) An earl is indeed the third highest title in the British peerage after duke and marquess as Kelly states, but whilst there were less than 20 English dukedoms and a similar number of marquessates at the start of the Regency, there were decidedly more than ‘a handful’ of earls. According to Debrett’s, there were about 90 English earldoms alone at the start of the Regency – a very large handful!(7)
A mixed bag
There are many more comments I could make on this book which, in my opinion, was a mixed bag of fascinating insights and unhelpful suggestions that I could have done without. You may discover some real gems that take you closer to Jane’s world, but if you love Jane’s novels as the love stories they are, then you might not want to take the risk!
Notes
(1) From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
(2) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p176
(3) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p96
(4) From Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)
(5) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p99
(6) From Jane Austen - The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (2016) p135
(7) From Debrett’s The Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1820)
January 30, 2020
I was just sort of expecting a fun book where the author points out passages in Austen's work that add credibility to the idea that Jane Austen was a radical thinker for her time. And that does occur here. (Radical, by the way, has a bit of a different usage here, in that it mostly means someone who is open to new ideas, and to rejecting the old if that is the right thing to do. That word has a negative association now that isn't really meant here.) But, what we really get is a pretty thorough breakdown of the most relevant social and historical context that Jane's contemporary readers would have understood implicitly, but we either miss entirely or misinterpret.
Misinterpretation, or reading our modern sensibilities and modern knowledge onto Jane, is very common. It's one of the reasons people who haven't read Austen seriously (close reading with thought and care) often think she was just a woman who wrote small stories set in houses about romances, and write her off in much the same way literary authors write off "chick-lit" today (I'm not even going to start on the name of that genre, it makes my blood boil). Anyone who has seriously read Austen knows that's bunk, and that she was a very smart woman who wrote with care to her craft, and who packed a wallop of a biting undertone if you were really paying attention. Her books are stories, often with love in them, that also blatantly criticized the society she lived in. She was a satirist as much as she was a romantic (and Kelly calls her romanticism into question here, too).
And I tell you what, I have read Austen for pleasure many times, and I have studied her both as an undergraduate, and in the course of my graduate work, and there was so much in here that I didn't know, that seriously changes the way I see some of what happens in her books. Of course, all the professors I studied under were mostly followers of New Criticism, where historical context and the life and intentions of the author are either ignored or barely acknowledged in favor of a close reading of the text as an enclosed object. But I definitely think most of what was in this book was extremely relevant, as it completely changes the way some things are viewed.
For example, allow me to quote a long passage here:
This passage about knocked me over when I read it. And it's so glaringly obvious when you think about it. Of course childbirth and marriage were deadly serious subjects to write about, at least for women. Their results could make or ruin a woman, even in the best case scenario. Later in the book, Kelly talks about how Jane includes a character in Mansfield Park who was blessed with ten healthy pregnancies, just as Jane's sister-in-law was at the time of Jane's writing, but who would later die of her eleventh.
The whole book is stuffed full of things like that that completely reset the way you interpret the smallest of things. Of course I have been reading these books through the lens of assumed safe and healthy sex and delivery, because it is my baseline, and though intellectually I knew marriage and legal rights were different back then and took that into account in my reading, it's very different all laid out like this in front of you in this book, and very hard to ignore. Sex caused pregnancy, and death was just as much a part of pregnancy as ending up with a baby at the end. It was normal. Therefore sex was dangerous, and so was marriage.
The book is split up into sections following each of her published novels, as well as one concerning her life, and her death. Some chapters worked better for me than others. The great chapters contained a unifying theory that brought together the historical context and the actual plot and actions of the characters: Northanger Abbey (where the childbirth stuff is contained, as well as some fascinating stuff about gothic novels), Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice were the standouts, followed pretty closely by the chapter on Persuasion. Unsurprisingly, despite some great historical context concerning slavery, Mansfield Park was one of the weaker ones, as even Kelly (who studies Austen for her job) seems unable to come up with a unifying theory for that book. For as much as the book hints at the subject of slavery and the complicity of the church, that is not what the book is actually about (I have read it twice, and still can't figure out what we're supposed to take away from the story of Fanny and her relations). The subtext may be all about the historical context, but the actual text for me remains obscure. The chapter about Emma was all right, but the subject of enclosure just isn't as interesting to me as it seems to have been to Kelly.
This wasn't a perfect book. There were quite a few moments where I felt the author was really reaching, but even those moments were interesting to think about, and when I disagreed with her, it was still entertaining. Some of her ideas seem to really have upset people, if the Goodreads reviews are anything to go by, but the examples used in the negative reviews are mostly just small moments, and seem to ignore all the great big picture stuff in here. Anyway, the way to read literary criticism like this isn't to ascribe wholly to whatever the author's interpretations are. Of course you aren't going to agree with everything! Art is subjective. But it's fun to consider new perspectives, and in balance, I got so much more from this book that I'm going to take with me than I will ignore. This was such a readable book, and it was fun to read! And educational. And it made me want to re-read all of Austen for the millionth time.
Highly recommend.
Misinterpretation, or reading our modern sensibilities and modern knowledge onto Jane, is very common. It's one of the reasons people who haven't read Austen seriously (close reading with thought and care) often think she was just a woman who wrote small stories set in houses about romances, and write her off in much the same way literary authors write off "chick-lit" today (I'm not even going to start on the name of that genre, it makes my blood boil). Anyone who has seriously read Austen knows that's bunk, and that she was a very smart woman who wrote with care to her craft, and who packed a wallop of a biting undertone if you were really paying attention. Her books are stories, often with love in them, that also blatantly criticized the society she lived in. She was a satirist as much as she was a romantic (and Kelly calls her romanticism into question here, too).
And I tell you what, I have read Austen for pleasure many times, and I have studied her both as an undergraduate, and in the course of my graduate work, and there was so much in here that I didn't know, that seriously changes the way I see some of what happens in her books. Of course, all the professors I studied under were mostly followers of New Criticism, where historical context and the life and intentions of the author are either ignored or barely acknowledged in favor of a close reading of the text as an enclosed object. But I definitely think most of what was in this book was extremely relevant, as it completely changes the way some things are viewed.
For example, allow me to quote a long passage here:
"But for Jane a story about love and marriage wasn't ever a light and frothy confection. Generally speaking, we view sex as an enjoyable recreational activity; we have access to reliable contraception; we have very low rates of maternal and infant mortality. None of these things were true for the society in which Jane lived. The four of her brothers who became fathers produced, between them, thirty-three children. Three of those brothers lost a wife to complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Another of Jane's sisters-in-law collapsed and died suddenly at the age of thirty-six; it sounds very much as if the cause might have been the rupturing of an ectopic pregnancy, which was, then, impossible to treat. Marriage as Jane knew it involved a woman giving up everything to her husband—her money, her body, her very existence as a legal adult. Husbands could beat their wives, rape them, imprison them, take their children away, all within the bounds of the law. Avowedly feminist writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Smith were beginning to explore these injustices during Jane's lifetime. Understand what a serious subject marriage was then, how important it was, and all of a sudden courtship plots start to seem like a more suitable vehicle for discussing other serious things."
This passage about knocked me over when I read it. And it's so glaringly obvious when you think about it. Of course childbirth and marriage were deadly serious subjects to write about, at least for women. Their results could make or ruin a woman, even in the best case scenario. Later in the book, Kelly talks about how Jane includes a character in Mansfield Park who was blessed with ten healthy pregnancies, just as Jane's sister-in-law was at the time of Jane's writing, but who would later die of her eleventh.
The whole book is stuffed full of things like that that completely reset the way you interpret the smallest of things. Of course I have been reading these books through the lens of assumed safe and healthy sex and delivery, because it is my baseline, and though intellectually I knew marriage and legal rights were different back then and took that into account in my reading, it's very different all laid out like this in front of you in this book, and very hard to ignore. Sex caused pregnancy, and death was just as much a part of pregnancy as ending up with a baby at the end. It was normal. Therefore sex was dangerous, and so was marriage.
The book is split up into sections following each of her published novels, as well as one concerning her life, and her death. Some chapters worked better for me than others. The great chapters contained a unifying theory that brought together the historical context and the actual plot and actions of the characters: Northanger Abbey (where the childbirth stuff is contained, as well as some fascinating stuff about gothic novels), Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice were the standouts, followed pretty closely by the chapter on Persuasion. Unsurprisingly, despite some great historical context concerning slavery, Mansfield Park was one of the weaker ones, as even Kelly (who studies Austen for her job) seems unable to come up with a unifying theory for that book. For as much as the book hints at the subject of slavery and the complicity of the church, that is not what the book is actually about (I have read it twice, and still can't figure out what we're supposed to take away from the story of Fanny and her relations). The subtext may be all about the historical context, but the actual text for me remains obscure. The chapter about Emma was all right, but the subject of enclosure just isn't as interesting to me as it seems to have been to Kelly.
This wasn't a perfect book. There were quite a few moments where I felt the author was really reaching, but even those moments were interesting to think about, and when I disagreed with her, it was still entertaining. Some of her ideas seem to really have upset people, if the Goodreads reviews are anything to go by, but the examples used in the negative reviews are mostly just small moments, and seem to ignore all the great big picture stuff in here. Anyway, the way to read literary criticism like this isn't to ascribe wholly to whatever the author's interpretations are. Of course you aren't going to agree with everything! Art is subjective. But it's fun to consider new perspectives, and in balance, I got so much more from this book that I'm going to take with me than I will ignore. This was such a readable book, and it was fun to read! And educational. And it made me want to re-read all of Austen for the millionth time.
Highly recommend.
July 12, 2017
THIS FUCKING BOOK. ALL THE EYEROLLS.
Originally I gave it 2 stars, but after ruminating on it I had to knock it down to 1 star for the author’s sheer audacity because in her mind the only one person to have ever read Jane Austen correctly is herself.
*hello eye roll, my old friend*
It is as if she imagines herself to be the only person who has ever contemplated Jane’s writing before, and the few critics she does acknowledge are swiftly swept aside, sometimes only in a footnote!
Spoiler alert for some of the STUPID suggestions the author puts forward about Jane and her writing, which are new to me, and ridiculous:
• Jane Austen’s family literally killed her.
• Fanny Price’s father physically/sexually(?) assaulted his children, thus Fanny’s sister’s arguing over the little silver knife, which they used as protection against him
• Mr. Knightly doesn’t actually love Emma, he only wants control over Hartford, so that he can enforce more enclosures of the land.
• Wickham is Darcy and Georgiana’s half-brother, and he was never trying to marry her, just trying get in good with the family.
• Harriet Smith and Jane Fairfax are half-sisters.
• Catherine Moreland is masturbating, not opening a cabinet. “Let’s not mince words here. With all its folds and cavities, the key, the fingers, the fluttering and trembling, this looks a lot like a thinly veiled description of female masturbation.”
Spoiler alert for some of the OBVIOUS suggestions the author puts forward about Jane and her writing, which are not new at all, although she claims them to be:
• Mansfield Park is full of slavery!
• Sense and Sensibility is about primogeniture!
Furthermore, the snarkiness and disrespect to other critics and Janeites was insane. For example, one passage in the book: ”Slavery wasn’t some distant, abstract notice for Jane. Her own family has ties to the Caribbean. Her eldest brother James, has a slave owning grandfather, James Nibbs, an Oxford acquaintance of the Reverend George Austen” leads to the following footnote: “The biography Claire Tomlin includes this information in an appendix about attitudes to slavery, almost as if she thinks the issue doesn’t really have anything to do with Jane or her writing.”
So yeah, REALLY annoyed I actually bought this book (hardcovers are expensive y’all!) with the hope I would learn something interesting about Jane’s works. UG.
If you want to read an AMAZING book on Jane’s works, check out John Mullan’s What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved
Originally I gave it 2 stars, but after ruminating on it I had to knock it down to 1 star for the author’s sheer audacity because in her mind the only one person to have ever read Jane Austen correctly is herself.
*hello eye roll, my old friend*
It is as if she imagines herself to be the only person who has ever contemplated Jane’s writing before, and the few critics she does acknowledge are swiftly swept aside, sometimes only in a footnote!
Spoiler alert for some of the STUPID suggestions the author puts forward about Jane and her writing, which are new to me, and ridiculous:
• Jane Austen’s family literally killed her.
• Fanny Price’s father physically/sexually(?) assaulted his children, thus Fanny’s sister’s arguing over the little silver knife, which they used as protection against him
• Mr. Knightly doesn’t actually love Emma, he only wants control over Hartford, so that he can enforce more enclosures of the land.
• Wickham is Darcy and Georgiana’s half-brother, and he was never trying to marry her, just trying get in good with the family.
• Harriet Smith and Jane Fairfax are half-sisters.
• Catherine Moreland is masturbating, not opening a cabinet. “Let’s not mince words here. With all its folds and cavities, the key, the fingers, the fluttering and trembling, this looks a lot like a thinly veiled description of female masturbation.”
Spoiler alert for some of the OBVIOUS suggestions the author puts forward about Jane and her writing, which are not new at all, although she claims them to be:
• Mansfield Park is full of slavery!
• Sense and Sensibility is about primogeniture!
Furthermore, the snarkiness and disrespect to other critics and Janeites was insane. For example, one passage in the book: ”Slavery wasn’t some distant, abstract notice for Jane. Her own family has ties to the Caribbean. Her eldest brother James, has a slave owning grandfather, James Nibbs, an Oxford acquaintance of the Reverend George Austen” leads to the following footnote: “The biography Claire Tomlin includes this information in an appendix about attitudes to slavery, almost as if she thinks the issue doesn’t really have anything to do with Jane or her writing.”
So yeah, REALLY annoyed I actually bought this book (hardcovers are expensive y’all!) with the hope I would learn something interesting about Jane’s works. UG.
If you want to read an AMAZING book on Jane’s works, check out John Mullan’s What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved
June 30, 2020
This is a strange book and (sorry) a ludicrous one. There's plenty of context, but the method and manner in which Kelly sets about "radicalising" Austen means ignoring all of the work on Austen that came before. Like, Emma is not "about" enclosures and Mr. Knightley is not simply a kind of Marie Antoinette. These are issues percolating through the book and these are factors that must be considered, of course: class, gender, politics. Doing so makes for fruitful reading. But this is a book of wilful misreading. Instead of seeing how class relations inform social relationships and character, Kelly wants to see Emma (or the other novels) as being specifically about Austen's radical politics as determined solely by Kelly and Kelly herself. It's a weird way to read a book.
It's a disservice to Austen as a writer to be so uninterested in how the novels work while imputing a whole hodgepodge of politically correct ideas to the author to update her for our modern times. There's really no need to panic if it turns out that Austen might have been a conservative and a snob and a product of her social environment and class. It makes the contrasting ideas and perspectives in her novels all the more intriguing because it was a mind at work and the ideological tensions are worth sorting out. Kelly's tone, meanwhile, is dismissive of all the Austen scholarship that came before. She delves deep into the books but puts forth rather bizarre conclusions that it's hard not to see this book as more about herself and less about Austen and her novels.
It's a disservice to Austen as a writer to be so uninterested in how the novels work while imputing a whole hodgepodge of politically correct ideas to the author to update her for our modern times. There's really no need to panic if it turns out that Austen might have been a conservative and a snob and a product of her social environment and class. It makes the contrasting ideas and perspectives in her novels all the more intriguing because it was a mind at work and the ideological tensions are worth sorting out. Kelly's tone, meanwhile, is dismissive of all the Austen scholarship that came before. She delves deep into the books but puts forth rather bizarre conclusions that it's hard not to see this book as more about herself and less about Austen and her novels.
July 17, 2020
I enjoyed this but agree with those reviewers who feel that it is (1) overly assertive about what Austen thought and felt - something which it criticises fairly fiercely in other authors -, that (2) it draws some fairly tenuous connections (just one example; Edward Ferrars and the scissors is far too heavily relied upon for what is ultimately a fairly weak Freudian interpretation) and (3) it could have done without the fictitious/imaginary sections.
Whilst I am glad I read the book and feel I learned something, especially from the careful dating work, I couldn't help but feel mildly miffed at the repeated assertion that everyone except Kelly has been reading Austen wrongly and that we all need to revise our opinion of her completely. I didn't actually find the conclusions in this book earth shatteringly surprising. Austen's radical notions are not a secret to those who read any recent literary criticism and most modern annotated editions address them fairly thoroughly. The colonialist aspects of Mansfield Park, for example, have been extensively explored in the twenty-odd years since Said wrote his seminal essay. When you strip out the speculation and occasionally rather forced arguments this book actually adds very little hard evidence to what we already know.
Whilst I am glad I read the book and feel I learned something, especially from the careful dating work, I couldn't help but feel mildly miffed at the repeated assertion that everyone except Kelly has been reading Austen wrongly and that we all need to revise our opinion of her completely. I didn't actually find the conclusions in this book earth shatteringly surprising. Austen's radical notions are not a secret to those who read any recent literary criticism and most modern annotated editions address them fairly thoroughly. The colonialist aspects of Mansfield Park, for example, have been extensively explored in the twenty-odd years since Said wrote his seminal essay. When you strip out the speculation and occasionally rather forced arguments this book actually adds very little hard evidence to what we already know.
Read
January 25, 2018I'm having a hard time rating this one - so I think I won't. This was a very interesting read and I absolutely sped through it - surprising for a work of literary criticism! On the one hand, I disagree with pretty much everything Helena Kelly says. On the other hand, her love of and fascination with Jane Austen informs every page, and her conclusions inspire rereading, rethinking and debate.
February 4, 2023
Her comments about Mr Knightley are ludicrous!!!!(Dept of Disclaimers: Mr Knightley is my favorite Austen hero) And I'm not talking about those old boring trite age/closeness of family things that I've fought against repeatedly and written about.
From John Mullan's review of the book(https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...) from the Guardian:
"As elsewhere in the book, however, Kelly’s eagerness to find a politically critical subtext leads her to ignore the narrative logic of the fiction. Few are likely to be convinced that Austen depicts Mr Knightley as a ruthless encloser of common land, “blind” to and “inconsiderate” of the concerns of poorer villagers. Doesn’t the plot turn on his pained understanding of the exact situation of the relatively impoverished Miss Bates? And can he really be convicted as a “Marie Antoinette” of the home counties because he invites all the main characters to a strawberry-picking party (forced on him by the ghastly Mrs Elton)?"
2/4/2023 DNF @ 150pgs Crude, absurd, etc etc. I was requested to reread for a Zoom. UGH! Dropping it to one star.
From John Mullan's review of the book(https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...) from the Guardian:
"As elsewhere in the book, however, Kelly’s eagerness to find a politically critical subtext leads her to ignore the narrative logic of the fiction. Few are likely to be convinced that Austen depicts Mr Knightley as a ruthless encloser of common land, “blind” to and “inconsiderate” of the concerns of poorer villagers. Doesn’t the plot turn on his pained understanding of the exact situation of the relatively impoverished Miss Bates? And can he really be convicted as a “Marie Antoinette” of the home counties because he invites all the main characters to a strawberry-picking party (forced on him by the ghastly Mrs Elton)?"
2/4/2023 DNF @ 150pgs Crude, absurd, etc etc. I was requested to reread for a Zoom. UGH! Dropping it to one star.
July 22, 2018
I found this book to be frustrating for a couple of reasons, mostly for the way that Kelly constantly acts like she is the first person to ever imply that Austen's writing was subversive and radical. Most people who are fans of Austen (and thus are interested in reading this kind of book about her) are already aware that nearly all her books are heavily critical of the society she lived in; today, her reputation is essentially as a feminist writer. As somebody who personally is a fan of Austen from an academic perspective AND loves most of the movies, I resent the idea that just because a person enjoys the romantic elements of Austen that they are apparently too dumb to notice all the political nuances of her novels. Newsflash: her feminist and radical elements are part of her appeal.
There is other stuff that grates me as well: many of the specific points she makes (especially those concerning Mansfield Park) have been well established in the Austen community for years, yet she acts as though she is the first person to think of them, and doesn't cite the other Austen critics who originally came up with them. There is also the matter of how she is incredibly critical of anything Austen related that isn't 100% guaranteed to be true (usually life events), but then begins each chapter with a fictionalized account of a moment in her life. What's more, she often makes insane theories about her books (no spoilers, but the Sense and Sensibility and Emma sections get weird), and then acts as if they are fact, but doesn't accept the same in others. It's pretty ridiculous.
As an Austen fan, I found the book interesting for historical information and her takes on some of the books, but overall was not a fan. Kelly’s smugness about how much of a genius she apparently is for figuring out that - shocker! - Jane Austen had political depth is a lot to take. In a few moments it made me want to pull out my hair. If you're a fellow Austen fan this book is interesting, but honestly should be taken with a grain of salt.
There is other stuff that grates me as well: many of the specific points she makes (especially those concerning Mansfield Park) have been well established in the Austen community for years, yet she acts as though she is the first person to think of them, and doesn't cite the other Austen critics who originally came up with them. There is also the matter of how she is incredibly critical of anything Austen related that isn't 100% guaranteed to be true (usually life events), but then begins each chapter with a fictionalized account of a moment in her life. What's more, she often makes insane theories about her books (no spoilers, but the Sense and Sensibility and Emma sections get weird), and then acts as if they are fact, but doesn't accept the same in others. It's pretty ridiculous.
As an Austen fan, I found the book interesting for historical information and her takes on some of the books, but overall was not a fan. Kelly’s smugness about how much of a genius she apparently is for figuring out that - shocker! - Jane Austen had political depth is a lot to take. In a few moments it made me want to pull out my hair. If you're a fellow Austen fan this book is interesting, but honestly should be taken with a grain of salt.
July 19, 2017
The author's tone really rubbed me the wrong way. She wrote very condescendingly, as if anyone who didn't agree with her ideas was a complete idiot. It felt like she was working too hard to make Jane Austen's works fit the "secret radical" image, choosing the most cynical, negative interpretations possible. There was some interesting background info on the social issues of the time, but I did not agree with all the conclusions drawn.
November 4, 2024
Superb and long-overdue reevaluation of Jane Austen and the context in which she wrote her beloved novels. For many people, I imagine “radical” is the word in the title that lifts eyebrows; for me, it’s the word “secret.” Austen’s politics have always felt clear on the page, and this is how I’ve read her, even lacking some of the well-researched context Helena Kelly provides here.
I understand romance readers, myself included, who get tetchy at the suggestion that the romance genre is inferior, and a book must earn in its way into the canon by being Serious and Important. But I also stand by my conviction that Jane Austen wrote only one romance—Pride and Prejudice—and had to warp all societal conventions to do it, and it’s important to understand why. She is first and foremost a political writer to me, and however you read her endings, the domestic is political, the economics and hierarchy of society is political, who we’re permitted or forbidden to love is political. When Kelly agrees that Austen deserves to be in the same conversation as Mary Wollstonecraft or Thomas Paine, I cheer.
I understand romance readers, myself included, who get tetchy at the suggestion that the romance genre is inferior, and a book must earn in its way into the canon by being Serious and Important. But I also stand by my conviction that Jane Austen wrote only one romance—Pride and Prejudice—and had to warp all societal conventions to do it, and it’s important to understand why. She is first and foremost a political writer to me, and however you read her endings, the domestic is political, the economics and hierarchy of society is political, who we’re permitted or forbidden to love is political. When Kelly agrees that Austen deserves to be in the same conversation as Mary Wollstonecraft or Thomas Paine, I cheer.
Read
July 1, 2018Listening to the excellent Bonnets at Dawn podcast about Mansfield Park inspired me to download this book and read it at last. I enjoyed the chapter on Pride & Prejudice the most, and appreciated Ms. Kelly's work putting Austen's work into more of a historical and political context than is often found. Austen's work is capable of being read many ways, as befits its genius. I sometimes felt that Ms. Kelly felt strongly that she had hit on the "right" way and other people's ways were "wrong," which struck me as slightly absurd.
July 22, 2018
A few arguments were interesting, some... far-fetched, but others frankly ridiculous.
I expected something that read less like conspiracy theories.
I expected something that read less like conspiracy theories.
February 28, 2018
Kelly shakes our view of Jane up...a lot! Jane's younger family members grew up in the Victorian Age and tweaked Jane's image to fit the ideal of a pious, quiet, unassuming, Christian woman.
Through a deep reading of Jane's novels, Kelly concluded that Jane was a secret radical whose books addressed issues that her first readers would have recognized: slavery, poverty, enclosure, war, feminism, changing societal values, the hypocrisy of the church.
One might think it is a matter of seeing what one wants to see in a book, but I will warn you that Kelly builds her case based on the texts and family letters and a thorough knowledge of Austen's life, time, and place.
In Northanger Abbey, published after Austen's death and years too late for the audience it was intended for--readers who were well versed in the Gothic novel of the 1790s--Kelly sees "The Anxieties of Common Life."
"The Age of Brass" finds Kelly's reading of Sense and Sensibility as a book about "property and inheritance--about greed and the terrible, selfish things that families do to each other for the sake of money."
In Pride and Prejudice, that sparkling and delightful novel so beloved today, Kelly finds a "revolutionary fairy tale, a fantasy of how, with reform, with radical thinking, society can be safely remodeled" without the revolution that had wracked France.
Mansfield Park is about "The Chain and the Cross," referring to Fanny's amber cross from her brother and the chain gifted her by her cousin Edmund. (Inspired by Austen's own amber cross from her sailor brother.) It also refers to British wealth from slave plantations in the Caribbean and how the Christian church profited from them.
Enclosure was the turning of common lands into privately held lands for use by the rich only. "Gruel" is Kelly's chapter on Emma, in which Jane references how wealth was concentrated into the hands of a few while workers starved, unable to afford British wheat. The Corn Laws kept the price artificially kept high; good for farmers and disastrous for the working poor.
The Lyme cliffs hold a treasure chest of fossils. The characters in Persuasion make a visit to Lyme where a series of events change their lives. "Decline and Fall" places the novel in perspective of Jane's personal life and the alteration in British society. The book takes place in a brief moment of peace with France, just before Napoleon escapes from Elba.
After reading this book, you will realize that Jane is not the person you thought you knew.
I received the book as a present.
Through a deep reading of Jane's novels, Kelly concluded that Jane was a secret radical whose books addressed issues that her first readers would have recognized: slavery, poverty, enclosure, war, feminism, changing societal values, the hypocrisy of the church.
One might think it is a matter of seeing what one wants to see in a book, but I will warn you that Kelly builds her case based on the texts and family letters and a thorough knowledge of Austen's life, time, and place.
In Northanger Abbey, published after Austen's death and years too late for the audience it was intended for--readers who were well versed in the Gothic novel of the 1790s--Kelly sees "The Anxieties of Common Life."
"The Age of Brass" finds Kelly's reading of Sense and Sensibility as a book about "property and inheritance--about greed and the terrible, selfish things that families do to each other for the sake of money."
In Pride and Prejudice, that sparkling and delightful novel so beloved today, Kelly finds a "revolutionary fairy tale, a fantasy of how, with reform, with radical thinking, society can be safely remodeled" without the revolution that had wracked France.
Mansfield Park is about "The Chain and the Cross," referring to Fanny's amber cross from her brother and the chain gifted her by her cousin Edmund. (Inspired by Austen's own amber cross from her sailor brother.) It also refers to British wealth from slave plantations in the Caribbean and how the Christian church profited from them.
Enclosure was the turning of common lands into privately held lands for use by the rich only. "Gruel" is Kelly's chapter on Emma, in which Jane references how wealth was concentrated into the hands of a few while workers starved, unable to afford British wheat. The Corn Laws kept the price artificially kept high; good for farmers and disastrous for the working poor.
The Lyme cliffs hold a treasure chest of fossils. The characters in Persuasion make a visit to Lyme where a series of events change their lives. "Decline and Fall" places the novel in perspective of Jane's personal life and the alteration in British society. The book takes place in a brief moment of peace with France, just before Napoleon escapes from Elba.
After reading this book, you will realize that Jane is not the person you thought you knew.
I received the book as a present.
July 15, 2017
Oh, how I wanted to like this more. There are some strong moments like the explanations of gypsies and dinosaurs, but UGH. UGH UGH UGH. There are far too many outrageous one-liners that argue wild points without any solid evidence or explanation. For instance, "The word 'sadist' hasn't been coined when Jane was writing, but that's undoubtedly what Mr. Price is." Um, what? If the author had run with her over-the-top ideas like her suggestion of Edward Ferrars's sexual perversion, maybe this would have been a stronger book.
Also, the idea that JA is some secret radical is pretty unoriginal (although according to her tone, you wouldn't know that), and the author's attitude of "there's so much Austen criticism out there, but I don't need to touch it" was insulting. I think it's safe to assume this was a bunch of haphazard essays written on the fly and slopped together (there's even a thinly veiled mention of this in the acknowledgements, which is drastically void of mention of any original research on her part) just to get in under the bicentennial marketing deadline.
October 8, 2017
So frustrating. While this book was well-researched and did contain fun nuggets of knowledge about the Austen family, Kelly makes what I feel are a number of post hoc logical fallacies- jumping to conclusions that could be true, but have no roots in primary sources. She contests that the timing of the publication of Austen’s works have changed the way the novels were read, the arguments that Austen was sneaking in commentaries on slavery and enclosure are weak- filled with much historical context but little substance from Austen’s novels other than character names, setting references and short lines of dialogue. While the organization of this book connects each novel to a separate issue, I felt she overlapped several issues and may have been better served looking at issues for what they were, not isolating them to each novel. Kelly is a gifted writer and her imagined chapter openers draw her readers into the world of Jane Austen, but sadly, I just couldn’t believe her assertions and see the title take shape. More to Jane than meets the eye? Certainly. Secret radical? Not at all.
dnf
August 1, 2018As much as I love Jane Austen, I did not enjoy this. In fact, I didn't even finish it. In some places it was interesting, but the things Kelly spoke about just seemed very far fetched and the evidence thin and flimsy. She also didn't focus very well on one topic and would start talking about another book in a chapter that was supposed to focused on a particular one. I also didn't really enjoy the way her voice came across in this one. I just did not have enough interest to finish it.
September 11, 2019
I only finished this book because a friend asked me to. And I gave it two starts rather than one because I know how hard it is to write a book. I've strained a muscle from all the eye-rolling. Too many sentences from the novels are out of context and from there become an outlandish premise that's not based on fact. The author doesn’t prove most of the claims she makes. Yes, Austen knew there were wars and class struggles and slavery and that people had sex! Not earth shattering news.
August 24, 2019
If you know nothing about Austen or if you somehow think she was just sitting in a room drinking tea and not at all engaging with the outside world, this would seem groundbreaking. But if you have a little more than cursory knowledge of Austen, this should infuriate you. It proposes that JA is a secret radical because she's...commenting on her society? Basically, Kelly seems to have started from the faulty premise that books and writing aren't inherently political, when OF COURSE they are. There are some interesting close readings here, but a lot of her readings are stretching way too far with not enough evidence to back them up -- and given the paucity of notes and titles in the bibliography, this is not really a surprise.
July 25, 2017
Ka-boom. This is a great analysis of Jane Austen's 6 novels, putting them into a context that was lost when her publisher sat on her submission for 10 years without publishing, a supremely frustrating act, because it renders her subversive commentary on society out of date. Nothing is more maddening than when someone thinks Austen's books are romances. No, they are social critiques hidden in little domestic stories. The real background is vibrant and full of intrigue--and mostly lost to us as modern readers.
I will read this again and again.
I will read this again and again.
July 11, 2017
This entire book reads like a petulant author yelling I'm right and you're wrong. Lots of research no proof.
September 1, 2017
I LOVE this so much. I had the pleasure of having a class with Helena on Jane Austen, where many of the points she brought up in this book were discussed, so I am a bit biased - she introduced me to Clueless AND Bride and Prejudice and was generally awesome, how could I not love her, right?
Many of the negative reviewers seem to believe they are being individually condescended to by Helena's assertion that they've read Jane wrong. Come on, no. You may perfectly well have noticed the occurrence of Stuart names in Persuasion or the hypocrisy of Edmund Bertram, but can you deny that the popular conception of Jane's books - the adaptations, what we're meant to understand by calling someone a Janeite - is simplistic in comparison to what she actually wrote? Of course, in a point-by-point rundown of misconceptions surrounding Jane's books, relating to the political climate of the time, books Jane had read, etc., obviously someone familiar with the 18th century British literary culture will be aware of some of them, but of all of them? I really feel Helena does provide plenty of information I hadn't previously considered at all, there ARE secrets that I, someone pretty darn interested in Jane, was surprised to read from Helena.
Helena's book is very thorough, and ties all the novels together very nicely, tracking Jane's maturation as an author, her developing ideologies. I enjoyed the creative pieces at the beginning of each chapter. I feel like she really gave life to this book, it's one of the "academic" books I've felt the most emotional while reading. The tone is conversational, but I never doubted the research or critical mind behind it.
Jane Austen, the Secret Radical made me rethink my relationship to Jane's work - and this considering I spent an entire semester in a Jane Austen seminar with Helena - which I think is the book's stated intention, so in this it was resoundingly successful for me.
The actual chapters:
I used to hate Emma, actually, could barely get through it my first go 'round (when I was like 12 and had just made my parents buy me all six from Barnes and Noble Classics), but I really came to love it in Helena's class, as far deeper than I had realized, and I felt like the historical details were on point in this chapter. I also found it the darkest.
Sense and Sensibility was I think the strongest of her chapters, as it had the most textual revelations, and drew the most surprise from me. I used to identify as somewhat of a Marianne, i.e. far more into romantic notions than what was good for me, so the chapter has special interest to me.
I have never enjoyed Mansfield Park, so while Helena's takedown of Edmund Bertram was satisfying, it wasn't precisely enjoyable for me, personally.
Pride and Prejudice was, I felt, the weakest, as much of the analysis focuses on displaying for modern readers quite how much of an affront to rank their relationship really is and hammering home things that are glossed over in the movie adaptations, i.e. the inherent threat of a large group of armed strangers in your town, the poverty facing the Bennet sisters because of entailments, etc. This isn't to say the chapter was bad, per se, but it was more of a soft secret, than the kind of investigative nature of the secrets, as in the etymology behind the Moor Park apricot tree, the men named Norris, and so on.
The Northanger Abbey chapter was insightful about the use of the Gothic within that text, if I ever get around to actually reading the Mysteries of Udolpho, I intend to read both NA and the chapter here again.
Finally Persuasion! I loved this one too much to speak intelligently about it, though I loved the bit about the hazelnut. That's another thing, Helena is FUNNY, I laughed twice.
We all love Jane, whether for escapist fantasies or as literary critics, and I think Helena loves Jane too, and so she gives us a different take, a broader scope, in this book, not to rob us of our Darcy/Wentworth/Knightley crushes*, but to give us even more to delight in with Jane, the power to make the rediscovery of her novels as interesting and fun and funny as our first discovery of them.
*If anyone finds any of the other "heroes" crushworthy, I haven't heard about it. :P
Many of the negative reviewers seem to believe they are being individually condescended to by Helena's assertion that they've read Jane wrong. Come on, no. You may perfectly well have noticed the occurrence of Stuart names in Persuasion or the hypocrisy of Edmund Bertram, but can you deny that the popular conception of Jane's books - the adaptations, what we're meant to understand by calling someone a Janeite - is simplistic in comparison to what she actually wrote? Of course, in a point-by-point rundown of misconceptions surrounding Jane's books, relating to the political climate of the time, books Jane had read, etc., obviously someone familiar with the 18th century British literary culture will be aware of some of them, but of all of them? I really feel Helena does provide plenty of information I hadn't previously considered at all, there ARE secrets that I, someone pretty darn interested in Jane, was surprised to read from Helena.
Helena's book is very thorough, and ties all the novels together very nicely, tracking Jane's maturation as an author, her developing ideologies. I enjoyed the creative pieces at the beginning of each chapter. I feel like she really gave life to this book, it's one of the "academic" books I've felt the most emotional while reading. The tone is conversational, but I never doubted the research or critical mind behind it.
Jane Austen, the Secret Radical made me rethink my relationship to Jane's work - and this considering I spent an entire semester in a Jane Austen seminar with Helena - which I think is the book's stated intention, so in this it was resoundingly successful for me.
The actual chapters:
I used to hate Emma, actually, could barely get through it my first go 'round (when I was like 12 and had just made my parents buy me all six from Barnes and Noble Classics), but I really came to love it in Helena's class, as far deeper than I had realized, and I felt like the historical details were on point in this chapter. I also found it the darkest.
Sense and Sensibility was I think the strongest of her chapters, as it had the most textual revelations, and drew the most surprise from me. I used to identify as somewhat of a Marianne, i.e. far more into romantic notions than what was good for me, so the chapter has special interest to me.
I have never enjoyed Mansfield Park, so while Helena's takedown of Edmund Bertram was satisfying, it wasn't precisely enjoyable for me, personally.
Pride and Prejudice was, I felt, the weakest, as much of the analysis focuses on displaying for modern readers quite how much of an affront to rank their relationship really is and hammering home things that are glossed over in the movie adaptations, i.e. the inherent threat of a large group of armed strangers in your town, the poverty facing the Bennet sisters because of entailments, etc. This isn't to say the chapter was bad, per se, but it was more of a soft secret, than the kind of investigative nature of the secrets, as in the etymology behind the Moor Park apricot tree, the men named Norris, and so on.
The Northanger Abbey chapter was insightful about the use of the Gothic within that text, if I ever get around to actually reading the Mysteries of Udolpho, I intend to read both NA and the chapter here again.
Finally Persuasion! I loved this one too much to speak intelligently about it, though I loved the bit about the hazelnut. That's another thing, Helena is FUNNY, I laughed twice.
We all love Jane, whether for escapist fantasies or as literary critics, and I think Helena loves Jane too, and so she gives us a different take, a broader scope, in this book, not to rob us of our Darcy/Wentworth/Knightley crushes*, but to give us even more to delight in with Jane, the power to make the rediscovery of her novels as interesting and fun and funny as our first discovery of them.
*If anyone finds any of the other "heroes" crushworthy, I haven't heard about it. :P
July 15, 2020
While Helena Kelly surely knows how to write nonfiction, I can't get past of her interpretations of Jane Austen's novels. Kelly has a point of view that is highly anachronistic and far fetched at many points. She has surely done her research; when it comes to the contemporaries of Austen and the historical background, Kelly comes across as a good scholar. However I am so frustrated by everything else in this one, including how it seems that Kelly thinks her interpretation is only point of view that matters.
March 28, 2017
I always thought Jane Austen had a subversive sense of humour, it's good to see my theory proven right with actual real research and academic rigor. If only there was a similar book for Dickens my literary life would be completely complete.
July 11, 2018
I don't agree with many of the points made in here, but it was interesting, well written, and well researched.
July 19, 2025
2nd review July 2025
When I first read this I thought it was dreadful. Tinged with remorse that I may have been unfair I re-bought it (the first copy was quickly despatched to a charity shop) to give it another go.
I so wanted to be proved wrong, but no: it truly is dreadful. The only justification I can think of for publishing this half-baked twaddle is that there is a huge market for half-baked twaddle about nineteenth century female writers, and especially Jane Austen.
I don’t disagree with the hypothesis but she fails to go beyond unevidenced hearsay and spurious assumptions. I did assume her teaching in Oxford was at the university. I now understand it is at summer school level.
This copy is heading to the charity shop. As close to a waste of paper as I have read for a long time.
First Review September 2019
Bought in the hope of a convincing argument and feel robbed. £9.99 I could have spent on a proper book.
I can forgive the claims to some sort of insightful originality. All readers of novels will occasionally think they've discovered something for themselves. But this woman is a teacher! At a reputable institution! Her lack of critical understanding of her own arguments is thus indefensible. Her failure to acknowledge the considerable academic literature that has covered this ground before her is unprofessional. The arguments are speculative and largely based on supposition. And there appears to be an unfortunate lack of connectivity between the Ms. Kelly and the real world.
Yes, there are plenty who read Jane Austen in a romanticised manner. And why not? They enjoy the books and take a great deal from them. If they wish to dress in Regency clothes while they read, and get together with their pineapples once a year, then no harm is done to anybody. The world of literary criticism is neither enhanced nor undermined by these activities. Some people say they like to listen to "classical music" because it is "so relaxing". Again, this may be limiting the potential enjoyment but so what? Books do not need to be written to point out that we don't always appreciate everything that there is to appreciate.
My grumble with this book is that it pretends to have something to say. My dilemma was whether to continue once it became obvious that the premises were thin and strained and the manner patronising. I pushed on in the hope of a nugget or two. And they exist, though not necessarily in the form in which they were intended. Don't plough through this book as I did. Any academic paper, or even study guide, will offer up a great deal more reward for considerably less effort.
A couple of observations to illustrate.
"When it comes to Jane, (yes, she always calls her that) so many images have been danced (sic) before us; so rich, so vivid, so prettily presented. [someone has carefully followed the teaching instructions of writing to persuade GCSE English circa 2010; repetition (tick), alliteration (tick), rule of three (tick).] They've been seared (cliche) onto our retinas (technical language to impress) in the sweaty darkness of a cinema, (when did she last go to a cinema? Has anyone ever experienced film-going as "sweaty darkness"?) and the after-effect remains, a shadow on top of everything we look at subsequently." Complete nonsense without an iota of evidence to support it.
Occasionally we get what looks like reasoned thought. "This is a world in which parents and guardians can be stupid, and selfish; in which the Church ignores the needs of the faithful; in which landowners and magistrates are eager to enrich themselves even when this means driving the poorest into criminality." There is nothing exceptional here and nothing you wouldn't expect from a Key Stage 4 class discussion, and with suitable evidence and development, salient points could be made. In the very next sentence though, we get a return to the utter bollocks of much of the book. "Jane's (sic) novels, in truth, (rhetorical device) are as revolutionary, at their heart, (if you, like me, are clever enough to be able to see it...condescension, it's a dishonest rhetorical device which basically says if you don't agree with me then it is because you are too stupid to see what is really there.) as anything that Mary Wollstancraft or Tom Paine wrote." At which point the publisher should have returned the manuscript with a polite rejection slip.
When I first read this I thought it was dreadful. Tinged with remorse that I may have been unfair I re-bought it (the first copy was quickly despatched to a charity shop) to give it another go.
I so wanted to be proved wrong, but no: it truly is dreadful. The only justification I can think of for publishing this half-baked twaddle is that there is a huge market for half-baked twaddle about nineteenth century female writers, and especially Jane Austen.
I don’t disagree with the hypothesis but she fails to go beyond unevidenced hearsay and spurious assumptions. I did assume her teaching in Oxford was at the university. I now understand it is at summer school level.
This copy is heading to the charity shop. As close to a waste of paper as I have read for a long time.
First Review September 2019
Bought in the hope of a convincing argument and feel robbed. £9.99 I could have spent on a proper book.
I can forgive the claims to some sort of insightful originality. All readers of novels will occasionally think they've discovered something for themselves. But this woman is a teacher! At a reputable institution! Her lack of critical understanding of her own arguments is thus indefensible. Her failure to acknowledge the considerable academic literature that has covered this ground before her is unprofessional. The arguments are speculative and largely based on supposition. And there appears to be an unfortunate lack of connectivity between the Ms. Kelly and the real world.
Yes, there are plenty who read Jane Austen in a romanticised manner. And why not? They enjoy the books and take a great deal from them. If they wish to dress in Regency clothes while they read, and get together with their pineapples once a year, then no harm is done to anybody. The world of literary criticism is neither enhanced nor undermined by these activities. Some people say they like to listen to "classical music" because it is "so relaxing". Again, this may be limiting the potential enjoyment but so what? Books do not need to be written to point out that we don't always appreciate everything that there is to appreciate.
My grumble with this book is that it pretends to have something to say. My dilemma was whether to continue once it became obvious that the premises were thin and strained and the manner patronising. I pushed on in the hope of a nugget or two. And they exist, though not necessarily in the form in which they were intended. Don't plough through this book as I did. Any academic paper, or even study guide, will offer up a great deal more reward for considerably less effort.
A couple of observations to illustrate.
"When it comes to Jane, (yes, she always calls her that) so many images have been danced (sic) before us; so rich, so vivid, so prettily presented. [someone has carefully followed the teaching instructions of writing to persuade GCSE English circa 2010; repetition (tick), alliteration (tick), rule of three (tick).] They've been seared (cliche) onto our retinas (technical language to impress) in the sweaty darkness of a cinema, (when did she last go to a cinema? Has anyone ever experienced film-going as "sweaty darkness"?) and the after-effect remains, a shadow on top of everything we look at subsequently." Complete nonsense without an iota of evidence to support it.
Occasionally we get what looks like reasoned thought. "This is a world in which parents and guardians can be stupid, and selfish; in which the Church ignores the needs of the faithful; in which landowners and magistrates are eager to enrich themselves even when this means driving the poorest into criminality." There is nothing exceptional here and nothing you wouldn't expect from a Key Stage 4 class discussion, and with suitable evidence and development, salient points could be made. In the very next sentence though, we get a return to the utter bollocks of much of the book. "Jane's (sic) novels, in truth, (rhetorical device) are as revolutionary, at their heart, (if you, like me, are clever enough to be able to see it...condescension, it's a dishonest rhetorical device which basically says if you don't agree with me then it is because you are too stupid to see what is really there.) as anything that Mary Wollstancraft or Tom Paine wrote." At which point the publisher should have returned the manuscript with a polite rejection slip.
Read
December 12, 2016A DNF for me sadly. Whilst obviously thoroughly researched, I got frustrated with the author's conviction in her own interpretation of Austen's work. Having warned the reader about how little is known about Jane and her intentions, she then spends the remainder of the book second-guessing authorial intent and inserting fictionalised scenes of Jane's life that might have prompted her novels. To me this just undermined the many good points that the book was making and eventually it frustrated me to the point where I just didn't want to continue. Other Austen fans might feel differently as this is certainly very well written and contains much that is of interest - but eventually I just lost the will to finish it I'm afraid.
August 17, 2017
I've written a very lengthy review about it. It is available on my blog.
Kelly is not just unoriginal, she is mistaken. I disagree with the premise of this book and I think the examples adduced by the author to make her case are unpersuasive and in some cases risible.
http://www.lonamanning.ca/blog/jane-a...
Kelly is not just unoriginal, she is mistaken. I disagree with the premise of this book and I think the examples adduced by the author to make her case are unpersuasive and in some cases risible.
http://www.lonamanning.ca/blog/jane-a...
March 27, 2020
This book could have been so interesting, but mostly it's just a load of tripe with terrible supporting "evidence".
Kelly makes many extraordinary claims in this book. There is absolutely no argument that Austen had radical views for her time, but some of the claims made here just have absolutely no evidence made for them. Yet Kelly spends a substantial amount of time criticising other biographers for their lack of evidence. It's enormously hypocritical and rather annoying.
Mostly it's just completely devoid of logic. Fairly early on Kelly states that Austen rarely used symbolism in her work, a statement I largely agree with. Kelly then goes on to spend two entire chapters talking about how stuff in the novels (especially Mansfield Park) is symbolic of something or other. Well, are three out of her six novels massively symbolic, or did she not use symbolism much? Which is it? In my opinion the alleged symbolism is thin evidence at best, merely the symbol of Kelly desperately trying to find evidence to prove her own points.
Later on in the book Kelly references the "much-quoted claim that Jane described Emma as a 'heroine whom nobody but myself will much like' -- it appears only in the Victorian biography written by Jane's nephew. And there's really no reason for us to assume that Jane's own views chime with those of her heroine". This conclusion makes no sense. Since when does liking someone require you to share their views? As a writer, most of my favourite characters that I've created (or that others have created) are totally different to me. I like them because they're fun to write, fun to read, or even purely because they are so different to me. Kelly may have a point about the nephew making stuff up for the biography, but she then fails to grasp the meaning of the made up quotation and then she even uses the fact that this quotation is wrong as "evidence" that Austen cared way more about the Enclosure Acts than her protagonist! It makes no sense whatsoever.
Kelly's arguments are full of spurious logic like this, many times in every chapter. Honestly, it kind of reads like something you'd scrape up from an A Level student getting really into arguing about Austen on Reddit with other people who don't know a lot about Austen. A student who also writes weird fanfiction, not of the characters in the novels, but of the author, which she then inserts bits of at the start of each chapter. You have to be pretty obsessed with someone to write a book about them obviously, and that's ok, but Kelly reads as weirdly, disturbingly obsessed, the kind of person who has lengthy daydreams and fantasies about Austen while sitting on the toilet, and then decided to write her fantasies down despite not finding any actual evidence for any of them once she got back on her computer. It's weird.
Yet, this book is clearly very well-researched. I'm not convinced Mansfield Park is about slavery (I haven't read Mansfield Park yet, so I'm interested to read it with this in mind) because most of the "evidence" Kelly cites is Austen's little-used symbolism. But I'm also not convinced it's NOT about slavery. The character of Mrs Norris is discussed as having links to not one, but two pro-slavery arseholes by the name of Norris from Austen's time, Mrs Norris is apparently a terrible person as characters go, and she takes one or two non-symbolic actions in the book that are very reminiscent of the real-life Norrises. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing Austen revels in normally, you see her characters slyly doing things like that all the time, and we know she enjoys that sort of secret inside reference, judging by all her books and remaining letters. That whole argument is very well-researched, illuminating, and I actually felt quite persuaded ... it was just the other 75% of the chapter that detracted from the argument and made it all sound like nonsense.
The research also doesn't quite come through in the book oftentimes. The final chapter is about Austen's death. Kelly refers to Austen's gravestone inscription several times and how weirdly understated and rambling it is. She doesn't quote the inscription. I have no idea what it is, but she talks about it like it's as well known as "It is a truth universally acknowledged ..." If this were a serious literary paper in some Austen journal or something then maybe I'd expect the reader to be familiar with every word ever written about Austen (maybe), but ... it isn't. She does this kind of thing throughout the book, mostly with letters written by Austen that it's unlikely most people have ever even heard of, let alone read. She does it with the books a lot too, which is more understandable, but then she'll also spend pages recounting the a huge chunk of the plot of a book. Anyway, what really irked me about the gravestone inscription thing is that Kelly harps on about how weird it is without ever telling us what it is, then she includes some "evidence" that it "was thought odd as early as 1817 ... when the author of a book about Winchester cathedral felt the need to include a paragraph explaining who on earth Jane was", and then she attaches a quote from the book that doesn't read like the author thought it was odd in the slightest. Ironically, Kelly broadly accuses the majority of Austen's readers of not understanding the depth of Austen's novels and thinking they're frivolous romances (I've never met anyone who's actually read her and believes that), in a book where you'd have to not be paying the slightest bit of attention to in order to think it was good. The huge logical fallacies and complete failure to construct an argument are easy to spot and so bad that I don't even think Kelly's an incompetent essayist, I think she just pitched the idea for this book without actually researching her arguments first, then didn't have enough material for it and forged on anyway, not giving a damn if it made any sense.
There's a lot of value here in putting Austen into the context of her time. The references to other popular novels, that we know or can safely assume Austen was familiar with, were interesting and almost impossible to ignore once they're pointed out and really help you see where Austen was coming from and how readers might have received them at the time. And yet Kelly also (repeatedly) makes the point that most of Austen's novels were published long after she wrote them, when the references were dated. This is the crux of her argument on why people don't take Austen seriously (except they actually do so her entire premise is nonsense) and that Austen would have been upset by the delay in publication because people wouldn't read into the references properly a decade or more after the references were relevant. Kelly manages to demolish her own argument by talking about Sanditon, Austen's final unfinished novel, which we know was written at the end of her life, and apparently contains "literary references [that] are old, out of date". So Austen was simultaneously annoyed that her books were apparently published too late for the references to be got, but Austen was also writing a new book with deliberately dated references. To me, that's evidence that she didn't care about references being dated, and maybe she even did it on purpose in her previous books so they're useless to use as a dating method to determine when she wrote them. But that's not really an obstacle for Kelly because nothing she says has to make actual sense or be backed up by fact.
I learnt a lot about Jane Austen from this book. But none of it was through Kelly's hugely flawed opinion piece and she misunderstood such a huge amount of what she was writing about, I honestly don't think I can trust any of the facts I may have gleaned from this book. I'm going to read more about Austen because my interest is piqued, but I am not going to read any more from Kelly.
Kelly makes many extraordinary claims in this book. There is absolutely no argument that Austen had radical views for her time, but some of the claims made here just have absolutely no evidence made for them. Yet Kelly spends a substantial amount of time criticising other biographers for their lack of evidence. It's enormously hypocritical and rather annoying.
Mostly it's just completely devoid of logic. Fairly early on Kelly states that Austen rarely used symbolism in her work, a statement I largely agree with. Kelly then goes on to spend two entire chapters talking about how stuff in the novels (especially Mansfield Park) is symbolic of something or other. Well, are three out of her six novels massively symbolic, or did she not use symbolism much? Which is it? In my opinion the alleged symbolism is thin evidence at best, merely the symbol of Kelly desperately trying to find evidence to prove her own points.
Later on in the book Kelly references the "much-quoted claim that Jane described Emma as a 'heroine whom nobody but myself will much like' -- it appears only in the Victorian biography written by Jane's nephew. And there's really no reason for us to assume that Jane's own views chime with those of her heroine". This conclusion makes no sense. Since when does liking someone require you to share their views? As a writer, most of my favourite characters that I've created (or that others have created) are totally different to me. I like them because they're fun to write, fun to read, or even purely because they are so different to me. Kelly may have a point about the nephew making stuff up for the biography, but she then fails to grasp the meaning of the made up quotation and then she even uses the fact that this quotation is wrong as "evidence" that Austen cared way more about the Enclosure Acts than her protagonist! It makes no sense whatsoever.
Kelly's arguments are full of spurious logic like this, many times in every chapter. Honestly, it kind of reads like something you'd scrape up from an A Level student getting really into arguing about Austen on Reddit with other people who don't know a lot about Austen. A student who also writes weird fanfiction, not of the characters in the novels, but of the author, which she then inserts bits of at the start of each chapter. You have to be pretty obsessed with someone to write a book about them obviously, and that's ok, but Kelly reads as weirdly, disturbingly obsessed, the kind of person who has lengthy daydreams and fantasies about Austen while sitting on the toilet, and then decided to write her fantasies down despite not finding any actual evidence for any of them once she got back on her computer. It's weird.
Yet, this book is clearly very well-researched. I'm not convinced Mansfield Park is about slavery (I haven't read Mansfield Park yet, so I'm interested to read it with this in mind) because most of the "evidence" Kelly cites is Austen's little-used symbolism. But I'm also not convinced it's NOT about slavery. The character of Mrs Norris is discussed as having links to not one, but two pro-slavery arseholes by the name of Norris from Austen's time, Mrs Norris is apparently a terrible person as characters go, and she takes one or two non-symbolic actions in the book that are very reminiscent of the real-life Norrises. This is EXACTLY the kind of thing Austen revels in normally, you see her characters slyly doing things like that all the time, and we know she enjoys that sort of secret inside reference, judging by all her books and remaining letters. That whole argument is very well-researched, illuminating, and I actually felt quite persuaded ... it was just the other 75% of the chapter that detracted from the argument and made it all sound like nonsense.
The research also doesn't quite come through in the book oftentimes. The final chapter is about Austen's death. Kelly refers to Austen's gravestone inscription several times and how weirdly understated and rambling it is. She doesn't quote the inscription. I have no idea what it is, but she talks about it like it's as well known as "It is a truth universally acknowledged ..." If this were a serious literary paper in some Austen journal or something then maybe I'd expect the reader to be familiar with every word ever written about Austen (maybe), but ... it isn't. She does this kind of thing throughout the book, mostly with letters written by Austen that it's unlikely most people have ever even heard of, let alone read. She does it with the books a lot too, which is more understandable, but then she'll also spend pages recounting the a huge chunk of the plot of a book. Anyway, what really irked me about the gravestone inscription thing is that Kelly harps on about how weird it is without ever telling us what it is, then she includes some "evidence" that it "was thought odd as early as 1817 ... when the author of a book about Winchester cathedral felt the need to include a paragraph explaining who on earth Jane was", and then she attaches a quote from the book that doesn't read like the author thought it was odd in the slightest. Ironically, Kelly broadly accuses the majority of Austen's readers of not understanding the depth of Austen's novels and thinking they're frivolous romances (I've never met anyone who's actually read her and believes that), in a book where you'd have to not be paying the slightest bit of attention to in order to think it was good. The huge logical fallacies and complete failure to construct an argument are easy to spot and so bad that I don't even think Kelly's an incompetent essayist, I think she just pitched the idea for this book without actually researching her arguments first, then didn't have enough material for it and forged on anyway, not giving a damn if it made any sense.
There's a lot of value here in putting Austen into the context of her time. The references to other popular novels, that we know or can safely assume Austen was familiar with, were interesting and almost impossible to ignore once they're pointed out and really help you see where Austen was coming from and how readers might have received them at the time. And yet Kelly also (repeatedly) makes the point that most of Austen's novels were published long after she wrote them, when the references were dated. This is the crux of her argument on why people don't take Austen seriously (except they actually do so her entire premise is nonsense) and that Austen would have been upset by the delay in publication because people wouldn't read into the references properly a decade or more after the references were relevant. Kelly manages to demolish her own argument by talking about Sanditon, Austen's final unfinished novel, which we know was written at the end of her life, and apparently contains "literary references [that] are old, out of date". So Austen was simultaneously annoyed that her books were apparently published too late for the references to be got, but Austen was also writing a new book with deliberately dated references. To me, that's evidence that she didn't care about references being dated, and maybe she even did it on purpose in her previous books so they're useless to use as a dating method to determine when she wrote them. But that's not really an obstacle for Kelly because nothing she says has to make actual sense or be backed up by fact.
I learnt a lot about Jane Austen from this book. But none of it was through Kelly's hugely flawed opinion piece and she misunderstood such a huge amount of what she was writing about, I honestly don't think I can trust any of the facts I may have gleaned from this book. I'm going to read more about Austen because my interest is piqued, but I am not going to read any more from Kelly.
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