Wide Sargasso Sea - Softcover

Jean Rhys

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140818030 ISBN 13: 9780140818031

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2001

Synopsis

Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Brontė's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumours begin, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness.

About this title

Review:

The novel is a triumph of atmosphere of what one is tempted to call Caribbean Gothic atmosphere It has an almost hallucinatory quality. "

About the Author:

Jean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1894. After arriving in England aged sixteen, she became a chorus girl and drifted between different jobs before moving to Paris, where she started to write in the late 1920s. She published a story collection and four novels, after which she disappeared from view and lived reclusively for many years. In 1966 she made a sensational comeback with her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, written in difficult circumstances over a long period. Rhys died in 1979.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140818030
• ISBN 13: 9780140818031
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Hilary Jenkins