Linda Kelly

Who is Linda Kelly?

Linda Kelly is an English historian whose expertise is in late 18th and early 19th century romanticism. Her books include The Marvellous Boy: the Life and Myth of Thomas Chatterton; The Young Romantics: Paris 1827-1837; The Kemble Era: John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons and the London Stage; Women of the French Revolution; Juniper Hall: An English Refuge from the French Revolution; Richard Brinsley Sheridan; Susanna, the Captain and the Castrato: Scenes from the Burney Salon, 1779-80; Ireland's Minstrel: A Life of Tom Moore: Poet, Patriot and Byron's Friend and Holland House: a History of London's Most Celebrated Salon.

These books have been widely praised as small masterpieces, and Kelly might be described as mistress of a genre of non-fiction novella. The flavour of her work is indicated by Lucy Dallas's review of the second edition of The Young Romantics: 'She illuminates scenes and incidents with a judicious choice of poetry, often quoted in full and refreshingly left untranslated. This means the narrative never strays far from its subjects; nor is Kelly afraid of expressing opinions about them - Sainte-Beuve, for instance, comes across as a particularly nasty piece of work.