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A review by irishcontessa
Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly
3.0
3.5 stars
I enjoyed this book a great deal. While I never looked at Austen's work as being "simply romances" and certainly saw subversiveness and a great deal of humor at the expense of period norms in those books of Austen's that I've read, Kelly takes it much, much deeper. I can't say she convinced me on everything but a great deal of what she had to say about the novels, their historical context, and how the ideas in them might have looked to readers when they were first published was interesting and made me thing about the works in new ways.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. While I never looked at Austen's work as being "simply romances" and certainly saw subversiveness and a great deal of humor at the expense of period norms in those books of Austen's that I've read, Kelly takes it much, much deeper. I can't say she convinced me on everything but a great deal of what she had to say about the novels, their historical context, and how the ideas in them might have looked to readers when they were first published was interesting and made me thing about the works in new ways.