Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys (August 24, 1890 - May 14, 1979), originally Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, was a Caribbean novelist who wrote in the mid 20th century. Her first four novels were published during the 1920s and 1930s, but it was not until the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 that she emerged as a significant literary figure. A "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea won a prestigious WH Smith Literary Award in 1967.

Rhys was born in Dominica (a formerly British island in the Caribbean) to a Welsh father and Scottish mother. She moved to England at the age of sixteen, where she worked unsuccessfully as a chorus girl. In the 1920s, she relocated to continental Europe, traveling as a Bohemian artist and taking up residence sporadically in Paris. During this period, Rhys lived in near poverty, while familiarizing herself with modern art and literature, and acquiring the alcoholism that would persist through the rest of her life. Her experience of a patriarchal society and feelings of displacement during this period would form some of the most important themes in her work.

Rhys's writing often centers on the lives of women transplanted from their roots and left to die at the whims of unfamiliar societies—an obvious echo of her own life. Her style is often noted for its distinctive blend of modernist techniques and West Indian sensibilities. Her work was published and promoted by Ford Madox Ford, among others. Diana Athill of Andre Deutsch's publishing house helped return Rhys's work to a wider audience after her writing had fallen out of favor and was responsible for choosing to publish Wide Sargasso Sea.

In later life she lived in London and was a friend of British jazz singer George Melly. She wrote a sardonic love song for him with John Chilton called Life With You.

Her collected papers and ephemera are housed in the University of Tulsa's McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives.

Selected bibliography

• The Left Bank and Other Stories, 1927
• Postures, 1928 (released as Quartet in 1929)
• After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, 1931
• Voyage in the Dark, 1934
• Good Morning, Midnight, 1939
• Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966
• Tigers Are Better-Looking: With a Selection from 'The Left Bank' , 1968
• Penguin Modern Stories 1, 1969 (with others)
• My Day: Three Pieces, 1975
• Sleep It Off Lady, 1976
• Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, 1979
• Jean Rhys Letters 1931-1966, 1984
• Early Novels, 1984
• The Complete Novels, 1985
• Tales of the Wide Caribbean, 1985
• The Collected Short Stories, 1987

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Modjeska, Drusilla (1999). Stravinsky's Lunch. Sydney: Picador. ISBN 0 330 36259 3. 

External links

• Literary Encyclopedia biography.Retrieved October 14, 2007.
• Jean Rhys Biography page.Retrieved October 14, 2007.
• Jean Rhys bio with particular ref. to her time in Dominica.Retrieved October 14, 2007.
• University of Tulsa McFarlin Library's inventory of the Jean Rhys Archive housed in their Department of Special Collections and University Archives.Retrieved October 14, 2007.

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