Career
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.
The Young Romantics conjures up the excitement of its time and succeeds in considering, however fleetingly, the history, politics, art and intrigues of an extraordinary age.".