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. 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 cosy, 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. 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. 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 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!

Spoiler alert for some of the STUPID suggestions the author puts forward about Jane and her writing, which are new to me, and ridiculous: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. 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. The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -Northanger Abbey

This is more a request for confirmation, then a real question. Something I want to discuss with you. I find that Jane Austen’s stubborn wish to write and publish novels is her first political statement and her most revolutionary act as a woman living in that time and that place. Then came her refusal to marry. Weren’t those truly revolutionary acts? 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. 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. 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.

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Butler’s 1975 portrait of Austen was a perfect fit for Mrs. Thatcher’s assumption of the Tory leadership that same year, and for her three administrations. Butler saw Elizabeth Bennet, to take a prime example, as irrationally prejudiced at the opening of “Pride and Prejudice.” Lizzy is, however, possessed of intelligence. She is educated by trial, error and near disaster. She finally makes the rational moral choice. When did she fall in love with Darcy? Elizabeth’s sister Jane asks. “I believe,” replies Elizabeth, “ I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.” It is not a joke. As do country houses elsewhere in literature — Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead, for instance — Pemberley embodies the Tory values of old England. This is what Elizabeth is marrying into and what she will support, wholeheartedly, as Mrs. Darcy. Lccn 2016497536 Ocr tesseract 5.2.0-1-gc42a Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9769 Ocr_module_version 0.0.18 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000738 Openlibrary_edition 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 tha I'm about halfway through the book, and I'm not sure I'll finish reading. For years, I've thought Jane Austen a feminist, way ahead of her time, and yes, even radical. Kelly is not the first to suggest that Austen's novels are critiques of her times, especially the treatment of women, of others of the gentry who were not eldest sons who inherited wealth and property, and of the plight of the poor. I've loved Austen's novels and read them over and over since I was a teenager, and I am old now. I've long viewed her books as far more than sedate drawing room dramas.