Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of

Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel '' Wide Sargasso Sea'' (1966), written as a prequel to

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...

's '' Jane Eyre''. In 1978, she was appointed a Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) for her writing.

Early life

Rhys's father, William Rees Williams, was a Welsh medical doctor and her mother, Minna Williams, née Lockhart, a third-generation Dominican Creole of Scots ancestry. ("Creole" was broadly used in those times to refer to any person born on the island, whether they were of European or African descent, or both.) She had a brother. Her mother's family had an estate, a former plantation, on the island. Rhys was educated in Dominica until the age of 16, when she was sent to England to live with an aunt, as her relations with her mother were difficult. She attended the Perse School for Girls in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, where she was mocked as an outsider and for her accent. She attended two terms at the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, also known by its abbreviation RADA (), is a drama school in London, England, which provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in Bloomsbury, Central London ...

in London by 1909. Her instructors despaired of her ever learning to speak "proper English" and advised her father to take her away. Unable to train as an actress and refusing to return to the Caribbean as her parents wished, Rhys worked with varied success as a chorus girl, adopting the names Vivienne, Emma, or Ella Gray. She toured Britain's small towns and returned to rooming or

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

s in rundown neighbourhoods of London.Carr, Helen (2004). "Williams, Ella Gwendoline Rees (1890–1979)," ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,'' Oxford University Press. After her father died in 1910, Rhys appears to have experimented with living as an artist's model after she became the mistress of wealthy stockbroker Lancelot Grey Hugh Smith, whose father Hugh Colin Smith had been Governor of the Bank of England. Though a bachelor, Smith did not offer to marry Rhys, and their affair soon ended. However, he continued to be an occasional source of financial help. Distraught by events, including a near-fatal

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

, Rhys began writing sketches and short stories. During the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Rhys served as a volunteer worker in a soldiers' canteen. In 1918, she worked in a pension office to help the families of dead or wounded soldiers and sailors.

Marriage and family

In 1919, Rhys married Willem Johan Marie (Jean) Lenglet, a French-Dutch journalist, spy, and songwriter. He was the first of her three husbands. She and Lenglet lived in Paris, where their baby son died, then lived in Vienna and Budapest before returning to Paris. Their daughter was born in 1922. In 1924, the year that the newly named Jean Rhys was discovered and published by the English writer

Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ''The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review (1924), The Transatlant ...

, Lenglet was imprisoned for embezzlement. The couple eventually divorced in 1933, but remained loyal to each others' work, while sharing the care of their daughter, Maryvonne. The next year, Rhys married Leslie Tilden-Smith, an English agent and editor. In 1936, they went briefly to Dominica, the first time Rhys had returned since she had left for school. Her brother Owen was living in England, and she took care of some financial affairs for him, making a settlement with a mixed-race woman on the island and Owen's illegitimate children by her.The visit exerted a powerful influence on Rhys's most famous novel, ''Wide Sargasso Sea''. In 1937, Rhys began a friendship with novelist Eliot Bliss (who had adopted that first name in honour of an admired writer). The two women shared Caribbean backgrounds. The correspondence between them survives. Rhys also became close to Phyllis Shand Allfree, whose family also lived in Dominica. Rhys and Tilden-Smith lived in London through World War II, while Rhys agonised over the possible fate of her daughter, living in Amsterdam. (Maryvonne had joined the Dutch Resistance and married a fellow fighter against Fascism) Tilden-Smith died in 1945. In 1947, Rhys married Max Hamer, a

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

who was a cousin of Tilden-Smith. He was convicted of fraud and imprisoned after their marriage. Rhys remained admirably loyal to him throughout, while their lives descended into conditions of extreme poverty, including even the hold of a boat and a horsebox. They settled in 1960, in a cottage in Cheriton Fitzpaine, purchased for Rhys by her oldest brother, Edward. Max Hamer died in 1966, the year in which ''Wide Sargasso Sea'' began a remarkable change in Rhys' fortunes.

Writing career

In 1924, Rhys came under the influence of Ford Madox Ford. After meeting Ford in Paris, Rhys wrote short stories under his patronage. Ford recognised that her experience as an exile gave Rhys a unique viewpoint, and praised her "singular instinct for form". "Coming from the West Indies, orddeclared, 'with a terrifying insight and... passion for stating the case of the underdog, she has let her pen loose on the Left Banks of the Old World'." This he wrote in his preface to her debut short story collection, '' The Left Bank and Other Stories'' (1927). It was Ford who suggested she change her name from Ella Williams to Jean Rhys.Owen, Katie, "Introduction", ''Quartet'', Penguin Modern Classics edition, Penguin, 2000, p. vi. At the time her husband was in jail for what Rhys described as currency irregularities. Rhys moved in with Ford and his long-time partner Stella Bowen. An affair with Ford ensued, which she portrayed in fictionalised form in her novel '' Quartet'' (1928). Her protagonist is a stranded foreigner, Marya Zelli, who finds herself at the mercy of strangers when her husband is jailed in Paris. The 1981

film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...

of the novel was produced by Merchant Ivory Productions. In '' After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie'' (1931), the protagonist, Julia Martin, is a more unravelled version of Marya Zelli, romantically dumped and inhabiting the pavements, cafes and cheap hotel rooms of Paris. With '' Voyage in the Dark'' (1934), Rhys continued to portray a mistreated, rootless woman. Here the narrator, Anna, is a young chorus girl who grew up in the West Indies and feels alienated in England. '' Good Morning, Midnight'' (1939) is considered a continuation of Rhys's first two novels. Here, she uses modified

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which ...

to voice the experiences of an ageing woman, Sasha Jansen, who drinks, takes sleeping pills, and obsesses over her looks, and is adrift again in Paris. ''Good Morning, Midnight'', acknowledged as well written but deemed depressing, came as

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

broke out and readers sought optimism. This seemingly ended Rhys's literary career. In the 1940s, Rhys largely withdrew from public life. From 1955 to 1960, she lived in

Bude Bude (, locally or ; Cornish language, Cornish ) is a seaside town in north Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Bude-Stratton and at the mouth of the River Neet (also known locally as the River Strat). It was sometimes formerly known as ...

, Cornwall, where she was unhappy, calling it "Bude the Obscure", before moving to Cheriton Fitzpaine, a small village in Devon. After a long absence from the public eye, she was rediscovered in Beckenham, South London, by Selma Vaz Dias, who in 1949 placed an advertisement in the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'' asking about her whereabouts, with a view to obtaining the rights to adapt her novel '' Good Morning, Midnight'' for radio. Rhys responded, and thereafter developed a long-lasting and collaborative friendship with Vaz Dias, who encouraged her to start writing again. This encouragement ultimately led to the publication in 1966 of her critically acclaimed novel '' Wide Sargasso Sea''. She intended it as an account of the woman whom Rochester married and kept in his attic in '' Jane Eyre''. Begun well before she settled in Bude, the book won the notable WH Smith Literary Award in 1967. She returned to themes of dominance and dependence, especially in marriage, depicting the mutually painful relationship between a privileged English man and a Creole woman from Jamaica made powerless on being duped and coerced by him and others. Both the man and the woman enter marriage under mistaken assumptions about the other partner. Her female lead marries Mr. Rochester and deteriorates in England as the "madwoman in the attic". Rhys portrays this woman from a quite different perspective from the one in ''Jane Eyre''. Diana Athill of André Deutsch gambled on publishing ''Wide Sargasso Sea''. She and the writer Francis Wyndham helped to revive interest in Rhys's work.Preliminary page in Jean Rhys, ''Quartet'', Penguin: 2000, . There have been film, operatic and radio adaptations of the book. In 1968, André Deutsch published a collection of Rhys' short stories, '' Tigers Are Better-Looking'', of which eight were written during her 1950s period of obscurity and nine republished from her 1927 collection '' The Left Bank and Other Stories''. Her 1969 short story "I Spy a Stranger", published by Penguin Modern Stories, was adapted for TV in 1972 for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's '' Thirty-Minute Theatre'' starring

Mona Washbourne Mona Lee Washbourne (27 November 1903 – 15 November 1988) was an English people, English actress of stage, film, and television. Her most critically acclaimed role was in the film ''Stevie (1978 film), Stevie'' (1978), late in her career, for ...

, Noel Dyson, Hanah Maria Pravda, and

Basil Dignam Basil Dignam (24 October 1905 – 31 January 1979) was an English character actor. Basil Dignam was born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire. Before the acting, he tried many jobs, from a company clerk to a journalist. He acted on film and ...

. In 1976, Deutsch published another collection of her short stories, '' Sleep It Off Lady'', consisting of 16 pieces from an approximately 75-year period, starting from the end of the 19th century.

Later years

From 1960, and for the rest of her life, Rhys lived in Cheriton Fitzpaine in Devon, once described by her as "a dull spot which even drink can't enliven much." Characteristically, she remained unimpressed by her belated ascent to literary fame, commenting, "It has come too late." In an interview shortly before her death she questioned whether any novelist, not least herself, could ever be happy for any length of time: "If I could choose I would rather be happy than write... if I could live my life all over again, and choose...."

Death

Jean Rhys died in

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

on 14 May 1979, at the age of 88, before completing an autobiography, which she had begun dictating only months earlier. In 1979, the incomplete text was published posthumously under the title '' Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography''.

Legacy and honours

In an appreciation in the '' New York Times Book Review'' in 1974, A. Alvarez called Jean Rhys “quite simply, the best living English novelist". Jean Rhys was appointed a CBE in the 1978 New Year Honours. Australian filmmaker John Duigan directed a 1993 erotic drama, ''Wide Sargasso Sea'', based on Rhys's best-known novel. The 2003 book and stage play '' After Mrs Rochester'' by Polly Teale is based on the life of Jean Rhys and her book, ''Wide Sargasso Sea''. In 2012,

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

marked her Chelsea flat at Paulton House in Paultons Square with a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

. In 2020, a pen allegedly owned by Rhys - a devotee of the ballpoint - was added to the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

's historic collection for the signing of their Roll Book.

Select bibliography

*'' The Left Bank and Other Stories'', 1927 *'' Postures'', novel, 1928 (published in the US as '' Quartet,'' 1929) *'' After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie'', novel, 1931 *'' Voyage in the Dark'', novel, 1934 *'' Good Morning, Midnight'', novel, 1939 *'' Wide Sargasso Sea'', novel, 1966 *'' Tigers Are Better-Looking: With a Selection from 'The Left Bank' '', stories, 1968 *''Penguin Modern Stories 1'' (with Bernard Malamud, David Plante, and William Sansom), 1969 *''My Day: Three Pieces'', stories, 1975 *'' Sleep It Off Lady'', stories, 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'', stories, 1985 *''The Collected Short Stories'', 1987 *'' Let Them Call It Jazz'', stories, 1995

References

External links

Literary Encyclopedia biographyJean Rhys bio, with particular reference to her time in Dominica
University of Tulsa McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Jean Rhys Papers
the British Library
Biography of Jean Rhys
by Dominican historian Lennox Honychurch
London Fictions article on 'After Leaving Mr Mackenzie'
by literary historian Susie Thomas {{DEFAULTSORT:Rhys, Jean 1890 births 1979 deaths Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art British women novelists People educated at The Perse School People educated at the Perse School for Girls Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century Dominica people 20th-century Dominica women Immigrants to the United Kingdom Dominica women writers Dominica novelists Dominica people of British descent 20th-century British novelists 20th-century British women writers Modernist women writers Modernist writers British women short story writers People from Roseau 20th-century British short story writers Lost Generation writers