Thomas Kelly: A Biography Hardcover – January 1, 1966
by Richard M. Kelly (Author)
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Publisher : Harper & Row; 1st edition (January 1, 1966)
Customer Reviews:
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M'Collie
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent biography of one of the 20th century mysticsReviewed in the United States on May 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
This is an excellent biography of one of the 20th century mystics; the author (son of Thomas Kelly) has drawn on his father's letters and other writings to produce an inspiring book that enriches the reading of Thomas Kelly's Testament of Devotion.
8 people found this helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating
M'Collie
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent biography of one of the 20th century mysticsReviewed in the United States on May 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
This is an excellent biography of one of the 20th century mystics; the author (son of Thomas Kelly) has drawn on his father's letters and other writings to produce an inspiring book that enriches the reading of Thomas Kelly's Testament of Devotion.
8 people found this helpful
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Thomas Kelly: A Biography. By Richard M. Kelly. New York: Harper & Row. 1966. 125 pages. $3.75.
I have been acquainted with this book since it was only a concern in the mind of Dick Kelly in 1957, while he was still a Haverford undergraduate. I am delighted with the finished product.
Having experienced a conversion experience himself while a student at Westtown, Richard Kelly's main purpose in writing a biography of his father was to document the cataclysmic religious experience Thomas Kelly went through in the late months of 1937 and the early months of 1938.
Evidence for this change is given in Douglas Steere's introduction to A Testament of Devotion, but all too briefly.
Since it was my privilege to know Thomas Kelly intimately as a student and as a member of a cell-worship group in his home, I have been very much helped by this biography, precisely because I knew only the "new" Tom Kelly.
I first met him on religious retreat in April 1938, as the crucial months drew to a close. Tom's scholarly image of himself had been shattered by a great failure, thus opening the way for him to become the authentic prophet of holy obedience, to which these pages bear witness.
Long selections of his letters home from Nazi Germany in the summer of 1938 are the high point of this book. One short selection will give you a taste:
I spent the evening at Karlsruhe talking of the life, which ... is a translation of love into deed. And afterward they said, 'How amazing to hear such talk!' . . . But I am convinced that it stül speaks, when it is genuine. . . . This world . . . strips off all but the genuine. It has to be genuine to stand up in this world of flame. And Quakers have no business here, or anywhere, unless they are genuine. But if the reality of the Divine Life is in any person, there is a living message and everybody . . . can read it . .1 see it as an aspect of the Incarnation. The Life of God must be actualized in men, in life, in lives. And in such lives there is born the way of Redemption (p. 101).
It is amazing to reflect that Thomas R. Kelly, the apostle of total commitment, actually said on the morning of the day on which he was to die of a heart attack, "This will be the greatest day of my life!"
Those eager to learn more of Thomas Kelly won't want to miss this book.
Wilmington CollegeT. Canbt Jones ...
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Thomas Kelly: A Biography. By RICHARD M. KELLY. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. 125 pages. $3.75.
The Journal of Religion, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 170-171
The one book authored by a Quaker in the first half of this century that is most likely to be read by future generations is Thomas Kelly's A Testament of Devotion. Many readers of that remarkable collection of essays and speeches have wished to know more about the author as a person. To meet this interest his son has produced this biography. Judging from this work it appears that Thomas Kelly was in no striking way remarkable during his rather brief lifetime. During much of it he was disturbed and unhappy, changing his occupation frequently. He is portrayed as having had an almost adolescent sense of humor even in his later years and as suffering at other times from bitterness and depression. At the time of his greatest disappointment, when it seemed possible that he might take refuge in either self-destruction or insanity, he passed through a remarkable radical transformation of character as the result of a deeply shaking religious experience. He reported afterward that God had become a living experience for him, sensed as an "Awful Power" within. In the light of this experience he lived his last four years serenely from his new-found center, speaking and writing on religious themes with certainty and conviction, as readers of his Testament testify.
Richard Kelly puts his story directly and without attempt either to explain or apologize for his father. Yet the reader will find himself puzzled by the portrayal, curious to know what were the psychological and spiritual springs of this contradictory man's life, what were his real motivations prior to his great experience, why he placed so great an emphasis upon scholarly attainment, and whether he was truly a mystic. To these and related questions no answer is offered. It would have enhanced the value of this interesting work considerably if they had been at least considered, since the value of a biography lies not only or even primarily in its recital of events but even more in its interpretation of its subject.
J. CALVIN KEENE
St. Lawrence University
