Helena Kelly.
Jane Austen, the Sectret Radical.
Icon Books. 2017
Almost everything we think we know about Jane Austen is wrong.
She writes about serious subjects and her books are deeply subversive.
We just haven’t been reading her properly.
Jane Austen, The Secret Radical puts that right.
Austen expert Helena Kelly introduces the reader to a passionate woman living in an age of revolution; to a writer who used 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 when to write about such things directly was seen as akin to treason.
Uncovering a radical, spirited and politically engaged woman, this book will encourage Austen fans to read her all over again.