Jane Austen the secret radical Almost everything we think we know about Jane Austen is wrong. Her novels dont confine themselves to grand houses and they were not written just for readers enjoyment. She writes about serious subjects and her books are deeply subversive. We just dont read her properly we havent been reading her properly for 200 years. Jane Austen The Secret Radical puts that right. In her first brilliantly original book Austen expert Helena Kelly 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. Uncovering a radical spirited and political engaged Austen Jane Austen The Secret Radical will encourage you to read Jane all over again.