Helena Kelly

Helena Kelly grew up in North Kent, just down the road from where Charles Dickens used to live. She’s written academic articles and set Oxford University finals examinations on Jane Austen’s novels and has taught courses on Austen to hundreds of people, of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds. Twenty years after she first picked up Pride and Prejudice, she is still discovering new things about her favourite author. She lives in Oxford with her husband and son.

Her first book, Jane Austen, the Secret Radical (2016), was published to considerable acclaim by Icon in the UK and Knopf in the US, with the Observer describing it as ‘a sublime piece of literary detective work’. Brilliantly original, it introduces the reader to a passionate woman living in an age of revolution; to a writer who used what was regarded as 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, and in a place, when to write about such things directly was seen as akin to treason.

Her new book, The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens, was published in 2023 by Icon. Helena retells Dickens’ story from his childhood to his deathbed, uncovers the truths he tried to keep hidden, and offers a fresh – and deeply troubling – perspective on the man who remains one of Britain’s best-known novelists.

Photo courtesy of Willow and Pea Photography