kmeyrick 's review for:

Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly

5.0

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I always knew there was something incredible about Austen ever since I picked up P&P for the first time when I was 13. I wrote about her and her work extensively my junior year of college mostly in relation to 1st wave feminism. I am quick to defend her when my unread peers attempt to undermine her work’s significance. This book solidified my deep love not only for Austen’s beautiful story weaving but also her incredibly modern, progressive, radical mind. I grew up in a community in which the girls I knew were obsessed with Austen love stories, but I wonder if our conservative parents would’ve let us read her if we were her contemporaries. This book touches on everything that Jane wrote about (explicitly or implicitly): politics, abolition, women’s rights, sex, religion, even history and science. One should be familiar with plots and characters before reading this. Even better, use it as a reading guide.