Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 24, 1890 Dominica, British West Indies |
| Died | May 14, 1979 (aged 88) Exeter, Devon, England |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, essayist |
| Genre | modernism |
Jean Rhys (August 24, 1890 - May 14, 1979), originally Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, was a Dominican novelist who wrote in the mid 20th century. She is best known for the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, her "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
Early Life
Born in Dominica (a former British island in the Caribbean) to a Welsh father and Scottish Creole mother, Rhys's family shifted to England when she was sixteen. The young author attended the Perse School for Girls and later worked as a chorus girl, suggesting that she had contact with the demimonde, a theme explored in her later work.[1] In need of money, the 23-year old Jean Rhys posed nude for a British artist, probably William Orpen, in 1913.
In the 1920s, Rhys relocated to continental Europe, travelling as a Bohemian artist and sporadically taking up residence in Paris. During this period, she lived a meagre existence, while familiarising herself with modern art and literature (translating Francis Carco's underworld novella Perversity), and acquiring the alcoholism that would persist through the rest of her life. The resentment of a patriarchal society and feelings of displacement which Rhys experienced during this period of her life would eventually form some of the most important themes in her work.
Later in the 1930s, Rhys developed a friendship with British jazz singer George Melly and wrote a sardonic love song for him with John Chilton titled Life With You.
Literary Career
Rhys's work was published and promoted by, among others, Ford Madox Ford, with whom she once had a ménage à trois along with his wife, the Australian painter Stella Bowen.[2]
Although her first four novels were published during the 1920s and 1930s, it was not until the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 that Rhys emerged as a significant literary figure. In the interim,during the 1940s, the author all but disappeared from public view, eventually being traced to 3 Landboat Bungalows, Cheriton Fitzpaine, in Devon.
Diana Athill of Andre Deutsch's publishing house helped return Rhys's work to a wider audience and was responsible for choosing to publish Wide Sargasso Sea (as recalled in Athill's autobiography, Stet).[3] The "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea won the prestigious WH Smith Literary Award in 1967.
Appreciation
Rhys's writing often centers on the lives of displaced and disenfranchised women left to die at the whims of unfamiliar societies—echoing her own lived experience. Her style is often noted for its distinctive blend of modernist techniques and West Indian sensibilities.
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
Archives
Her collected papers and ephemera are housed in the University of Tulsa's McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives.
Notes
- ^ "The original Mrs Rochester". The Telegraph. 2003-04-16. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Modjeska, Drusilla (1999). Stravinsky's Lunch. Sydney: Picador. ISBN 0 330 36259 3.
- ^ "The prime of Miss Jean Rhys by Vanessa Thorpe". The Observer UK, October 1, 2006. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
References
- Modjeska, Drusilla (1999). Stravinsky's Lunch. Sydney: Picador. ISBN 0 330 36259 3.