Rhys, Jean (rēs), pseud. of Gwen Williams, 1894–1979, English novelist, b. Dominica. Her novels, written in the 1930s, mercilessly exploit her own emotional life, depicting pretty, no-longer-young women who find themselves down and out in large European cities. Without work or funds, her characters must depend on men, chance encounters, or former lovers, for money to buy a hotel room, a drink, a pair of gloves. Rhys's vision is uncompromising and her literary style is spare. These early works include Quartet (1929), After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931), and Good Morning, Midnight (1938). After a long retirement she published her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which drew equally on her own Caribbean childhood and on a reimagining of Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre from the perspective of Rochester's mad West Indian wife. It was followed by three short-story collections and the first volume of an autobiography (1979).

Bibliography

See studies by T. Staley (1979), D. Plante (1983), and N. R. Harrison (1988).

Rhys, Jean

orig. Ella Gwendolen Rees William

(born Aug. 24, 1890, Roseau, Dominica, Windward Islands, West Indies—died May 14, 1979, Exeter, Devon, Eng.) Dominican-born British novelist. Rhys left the West Indies for London to study acting at age 16. She later moved to Paris, where she was encouraged to write by Ford Madox Ford. She earned acclaim for short stories and novels set in the bohemian world of Europe in the 1920s and '30s, including Good Morning, Midnight (1939). After settling in Cornwall, she published nothing for nearly three decades before producing Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), a memorable novel about Mr. Rochester's mad first wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (see Brontë sisters); and two story collections.