Worlds of Jane Austen

Helena Kelly holds a doctorate in English Literature from Oxford, where she has also taught from time to time and where she is about to return for a visiting scholarship at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College.She is the author of The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens (November 2023), already praised by Kirkus Reviews as ‘a literary bio that deftly untangles truth from untruth’, and of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical (2016), hailed as ‘a sublime piece of literary detective work’ (The Observer) and ‘an interpretive coup that is dazzling and dizzying’ (The New Yorker).

• Chapter 1: The RectoryChapter 2: RevolutionChapter 3: Army and NavyChapter 4: Give a Girl an EducationChapter 5: CityChapter 6: CountrysideChapter 7: SeasideChapter 8: Empire and SlaveryChapter 9: LegaciesChapter 10: AustenmaniaChapter 11: Present DayEnd NotesIndexPicture CreditsAcknowledgements

“Kelly brilliantly reconstructs the tumultuous world that influenced Jane Austen's writing, offering readers a fresh and illuminating perspective that even those of us with a familial connection find revelatory.”Caroline Jane Knight, Last of Jane’s Nieces from Chawton House"I just wanted to say I have loved reading Helena’s book - it is a triumph. What I love about Helena’s book - which I also loved about Jane Austen: The Secret Radical - is the fascinating way she is able to contextualise Austen’s life and work in a way that gives the reader the opportunity to return to Austen with completely fresh eyes and a whole new understanding of how the world she lived in shaped her and her pen. Her writing is both fascinating and accessible, and I’ll return to this book over and over again!"Dr Lizzie Rogers, Writer and historian of eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries