Elizabeth Gaskell

A Rebellious Heart

Helena Kelly

The life of the novelist (and biographer of Charlotte Brontë) Elizabeth Gaskell was very far from that of the Victorian housewife of popular imagination: here for first time is the true story of Mrs. Gaskell that her family did their best to keep secret.

In a literary career that didn’t begin until she was nearly forty, Elizabeth Gaskell published six novels (of which North and South is probably the most highly regarded), several novellas, short stories and essays, and a ground-breaking, wildly controversial biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë—until her sudden death, aged fifty-five, hundreds of miles from home in a house that she had bought without her husband’s knowledge.

Since the last major biography of Gaskell—Jenny Uglow’s Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories was published over thirty years ago—archival resources have opened up in an unprecedented way. Trawling through these, Helena Kelly has pieced together for the first time the true story of Mrs. Gaskell’s life and work that her family did their best to keep secret.

Sometimes described as composing novels like "Jane Austen with factories,” she was famous, influential, and critically esteemed in her life time, but history has not been kind to her. Thanks largely to the verdict of the literary critic David Cecil, who in the 1930s declared her "all a woman was expected to be; gentle, domestic, tactful, unintellectual, prone to tears, easily shocked"—that is, the ideal Victorian wife and mother—both Elizabeth Gaskell and her writing have been widely misunderstood and underrated.

In this book Helena intends to set the record straight, showing Mrs. Gaskell—“Lily” to her friends—to be an original thinker and literary talent who decided to pursue her own desires and creativity regardless of convention, wresting professional success and personal independence from a society that sought to deny her both.

Helena Kelly’s previous book, Jane Austen, the Secret Radical (Knopf) garnered exceptional review attention. She was brought up in Dickens’s beloved marsh country of north Kent, and she holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford, where she has taught classics and English Literature. Helena lives in Oxford with her husband and son.

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Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for The Life and Lies of Chalres Dickens:

"When Kelly unleashes her inner literary critic, she delights readers with pages upon pages illustrating the enduring influence of Dickens’s fictional biography on his fiction. When it comes to literary analysis, Kelly isn’t just unimpeachable—she’s energizing. For the first time in years, I’m excited to revisit David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. I can picture Dickens scholars passing their big, bold but timeworn questions like a baton, which is an achievement in itself.” Alexis Coe, The New York Times Book Review

"Kelly uncovers and explains likely truths about Dickens's birthplace, his parents' financial struggles, his multiple infidelities, his "borrowing" of literary material, and his medical conditions. This detailed and well-documented study, confidently and entertainingly written, is perfect for Dickens's fans and literary historians alike." Shelf Awareness

"A literary bio that deftly untangles truth from untruth. Diligent research and incisive close readings of Dickens’ writings ground Kelly’s investigation into the gaps, contradictions, and inconsistencies in the manipulated, self-serving story that many subsequent biographers have repeated: 'Who and what can we trust in this narrative?'" Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Jane Austen, the Secret Radical:

"Bracing. Plausible and vivid." The Atlantic

"A thoroughly engaging read.” The TImes Literary Supplement

"An important revisionary work. Helena Kelly provokes." The New York Times

"Kelly argues passionately and engagingly. Her critical method is generating meaning from the smallest details of the novels." The Washington Post

"Do we read Jane Austen’s novels as she intended? In this riveting literary-biographical study, the answer is a resounding no. An interpretive coup that is dazzling and dizzying. You won’t read Austen the same way again." The New Yorker

"A fresh take on the life and work of the beloved writer Jane Austen. Reveals the subversive rebel soul behind such towering classics as Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park." Elle