Kelly studied engineering at the University of Michigan and received a scholarship to pursue his MBA at Michigan State. He was admitted to the PhD Program but elected to pursue a career in industry. Career highlights included early use of time-sharing computers, travel to Europe and Japan, and an executive program at Harvard.
Upon retirement, he founded Howland Research in 1995. Data and image processing tools had arrived on desktops, and his work involving relational-graphic produced four process patents for his corporate clients. His fascination with the century-old dispute over the variant texts of Shakespear’s Hamlet dated from 1979, and in the early 2000s he had the capability and the time to develop the research tools he had envisioned for study of the issues surrounding the variant texts.
Kelly’s research on the controversial 1603 text of Hamlet contributed to the resolution of a century-old dispute, and his work was cited in the 2016 Arden revised edition of Hamlet. His subsequent essays on the subject appeared in scholarly journals in 2019 and 2022. He is presently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan and is working on an expanded edition of his Q1 HAMLET- The Evidence Matrix, which has been cited as “compendious and important.” He typically has one or two research assistants engaged with his current projects and has sponsored an endowed scholarship.
Among Kelly’s essays and books on the variant texts of Hamlet, Q1‘Hamlet:’ The Sequence of Creation and Implications for the ‘Allowed Booke’ appeared in the Berghahn Journal edition dedicated to Canonizing Q1 HAMLET, and Q1 ‘Hamlet’ and the Sequence of Creation of the Texts appeared in Arden’s HAMLET The State of the Play. The 3rd Edition of his book mentioned above is scheduled for publication in 2026.
As a book collector, he is a member of the Grolier Club of New York, and the Caxton Club of Chicago. He is a past President of the Prismatic Club of Detroit, the Detroit area’s literary club. Before moving to Ann Arbor and founding Howland Research he raced sailboats in the Etchells Class, a favorite of America’s Cup sailors, and he enjoys thinking with antique and sports cars as he has done since his youth.
Contact: ckelly@howlandresearch.com or cakelly@umich.edu