Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys, pseudonym of Ellen Gwendolen Rees Williams (1894-1979), British novelist, born in Roseau, Dominica, West Indies. She emigrated to England at the age of 16 and worked as an actress, then in 1920 moved to Paris, where she began to write, encouraged by the novelist Ford Madox Ford. Her first short story was published in 1924, her first novel, Postures, later retitled Quartet, in 1928. Rhys's fiction generally reflected her pessimistic view of the world and her sympathy for the underdog, especially women caught in lives they are powerless to change. She published three more novels—After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1930), Voyage in the Dark (1934), and Good Morning, Midnight (1939)—before withdrawing from the literary world. Rhys's next and final novel, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), revived critical and popular interest in her work. Drawing on her West Indian background, the novelist reconstructed the early life of Antoinette Cosway, Mr. Rochester's insane first wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Rhys's unfinished autobiography, Smile Please, was published posthumously in 1979.