Jean Rhys
Born 24 August 1890 · Died 14 May 1979
Jean Rhys, born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams in 1890, was a 20th-century novelist and writer of short stories. Born and raised on the Caribbean island of Dominica, she moved to England at age 16, became a chorus girl, and embarked on the life of a demimondaine there and in Europe. Her deep sense of being an outsider -- the descendant of white colonialists in the Caribbean, then a Creole in England -- never left her and deeply informed her work.
Rhys's evocative sketches in the 1920s caught the eye, and briefly earned the patronage, of Ford Madox Ford (her fraught relationship with him is explored in her debut novel, Quartet [1928]). She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which examined the character of Bertha Rochester (in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre) from a different angle.
Books by Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea1966
Good morning, midnight1967
Voyage in the Dark1934
Postures1928
Smile Please1979
The Collected Short Stories1987
Sleep it off lady1976
Tigers are better-looking1968
Left Bank, and Other Stories1927
After leaving Mr. Mackenzie / Jean Rhys1973
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie1931
The letters of Jean Rhys1984
Prelude to Poetry1971
Jean Rhys1985- Let them call it jazz and other storiesLet them call it jazz and other stories1995
La Grosse Fifi2011
The Virago Book Of Ghost Stories1994- Jean Rhys lettersJean Rhys letters1984
- My dayMy day1975
- Tigers are better-looking, with a selection from The Left BankTigers are better-looking, with a selection from The Left Bank1968
Il Grande mare dei sargassi1980- Collected Short StoriesCollected Short Stories2017
- Tales of the wide CaribbeanTales of the wide Caribbean1980
- Breads and Muffins (Cooking at a Glance)Breads and Muffins (Cooking at a Glance)1995