Arnold Charles Kettle (17 March 1916 – 24 December 1986)^[1] was a British Marxist literary critic, most noted for his authorship of the two-volume work An Introduction to the English Novel (1951).

Kettle was born in Ealing, London, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood and Pembroke College, Cambridge.^[1] Influenced by F. R. Leavis in his academic writings, he was a man of the left politically and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1936, remaining a member for the rest of his life. He was the Open University’s first professor of literature and worked there until his retirement in 1981.^[1][2][3]

His son is the journalist Martin Kettle.^[4]

Selected publications

• Kettle, A. (1951). An Introduction to the English Novel, Volume I (to George Eliot) and (1953) An Introduction to the English Novel, Volume II (Henry James to the present day), Hutchinson University Library.
• Kettle, A., Kott, J., & Taborski, B. (1965). Shakespeare in a changing world.
• Kettle, A. (Ed.) (1972). The nineteenth-century novel: critical essays and documents. Heinemann Educational Publishers.
• Kettle, A. (1991). Literature and Liberation: Selected Essays. Manchester University Press.