New to Penguin Classics, the remarkable, devastating collected stories by the author of Wide Sargasso Sea.
Some of Jean Rhys's most powerful writing is to be found in this rich, dark collection of her collected stories. Her fictional world is haunted by her own, painful memories: of cheap hotels and drab Parisian cafes; of devastating love affairs; of her childhood in Dominica; of drifting through European cities, always on the periphery and always perilously close to the abyss. Rendered in extraordinarily vivid, honest prose, these stories show Rhys at the height of her literary powers and offer a fascinating counterpoint to her most famous novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. This volume includes all the stories from her three collections,The Left Bank (1927), Tigers Are Better-Looking (1968) and Sleep It Off, Lady (1976).
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
The force of her stories lies in the fusion of elegant prose with an uncanny penetration into the darker reaches of the soul - Washington Post
She is the novelist of longing and yearning and rage and sexual desire ... One of the twentieth-century greats -- Linda Grant This book fully exhibits Rhys's extraordinary talent for prose - Independent
Author
About Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys (1890-1979) is best known for her novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which was published in 1966 when she was 76. Rhys's life was profoundly marked by a sense of exile, loss, and alienation-dominant themes in her novels and short stories. Despite critical acclaim at the end of her life, Rhys died in 1979 still doubting the merit of her work.
Rhys was born Ella Gwendolen Rhys Williams on August 24, 1890 in Roseau, on the Caribbean island of Dominica. Her father, Rhys Williams, was a Welshman who had been trained in London as a doctor and emigrated to the colonies. Her mother, Minna Lockhart, was a third-generation Dominican Creole.
