Jean Rhys Livres

Tigers are Better-Looking incorporates selections from Jean Rhys's first book of stories, The Left Bank, published in 1927, and later stories written after 1939. In them Rhys encompasses within a few pages both the gaiety and charm of youth and love, and an awareness of all that threatens them. Writing in The New York Times, A. Alvarez has called these stories "extraordinary." The early stories have added value in that they illuminate Jean Rhys's development as a writer. Those written later, when her art was mature, are on the level of her novels and demonstrate that she is one of the most distinguished writers of our time, "the best living English novelist," again to quote Alvarez. The title of this collection comes from the opinion which many of Jean Rhys's characters share, that respectable people are as alarming as tigers, but "tigers are better-looking, aren't they?" It also reflects the astringent humor in her work; an explanation that however sad or even sordid her subject, she is never depressing. --From the book jacket

A collection of sixteen short stories by the author of "Wide Sargasso Sea", "Voyage in the Dark" and "Good Morning, Midnight".

Prequel to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty, but soon after their marriage, rumors of madness in her family poison his mind against her. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals.

A brilliant companion piece to Wide Sargasso Sea, this is Jean Rhys's beautifully written, bitter-sweet autobiography, covering her chequered early years in Dominica, England and Paris. Jean Rhys wrote this autobiography in her old age, now the celebrated author of Wide Sargasso Sea but still haunted by memories of her troubled past: her precarious jobs on chorus lines and relationships with unsuitable men, her enduring sense of isolation and her decision at last to become a writer. From the early days on Dominica to the bleak time in England, living in bedsits on gin and little else, to Paris with her first husband, this is a lasting memorial to a unique artist. Includes an introduction by Diana Athill.

Includes some of the best British short stories of the last century ... You hear her voice speaking directly to you; her reality is your reality. (Guardian)

Julia Martin is at the end of her rope in Paris. Once beautiful, she was taken care of by men. Now after leaving her lover, she is running out of luck. A visit to London to see her ailing mother and distrustful sister bring her stark life into full focus.

Jean Rhys's Good Morning Midnight is an unforgettable portrait of a woman bravely confronting loneliness and despair in her quest for self-determination In 1930s Paris, where one cheap hotel room is very like another, a young woman is teaching herself indifference. She has escaped personal tragedy and has come to France to find courage and seek independence. She tells herself to expect nothing, especially not kindness, least of all from men. Tomorrow, she resolves, she will dye her hair blonde. Jean Rhys was a talent before her time with an impressive ability to express the anguish of young women. In Good Morning, Midnight Rhys created the powerfully modern portrait of Sophia Jansen, whose emancipation is far more painful and complicated than she could expect, but whose confession is flecked with triumph and elation. With an introduction by A.L. Kennedy 'Her eloquence in the language of human sexual transactions is chilling, cynical, and surprisingly moving' A.L. Kennedy

'A wonderful bitter-sweet book, written with disarming simplicity' Esther Freud 'It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known,' says Anna Morgan, eighteen years old and catapulted to England from the West Indies after the death of her beloved father. Working as a chorus girl, Anna drifts into the demi-monde of Edwardian London. But there, dismayed by the unfamiliar cold and greyness, she is absolutely alone and unconsciously floating from innocence to harsh experience. Her childish dreams have been replaced by harsh reality. Voyage in the Dark was first published in 1934, but it could have been written today. It is the story of an unhappy love affair, a portrait of a hypocritical society, and an exploration of exile and breakdown; all written in Jean Rhys's hauntingly simple and beautiful style.

Antoinette Cosway is a Creole heiress - product of an inbred, decadent, expatriate community - a sensitive girl at once beguiled and repelled by the lush Jamaican landscape. Soon after her marriage to Rochester rumours of madness in the Cosway family poison Rochester's mind against her.