Since her death in 1979, Jean Rhys’s reputation as an important modernist author has grown. Her finely crafted prose fiction
lends itself to multiple interpretations from radically different critical perspectives, formalism, feminism, and postcolonial
studies along them. This Introduction offers a reliable and stimulating account of her life, work, contexts and critical reception.
Her best-known novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, is analyzed together with her other novels, including Quartet and After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, and her short stories. Through close readings of the works, Elaine Savory reveals their common themes and connects these
to different critical approaches. The book maps Rhys’s fictional use of the actual geography of Paris, London and the Caribbean,
showing how key understanding her relationships with the metropolitan and colonial spheres is to reading her texts. In this
invaluable introduction for students and faculty, Savory explains the significance of Rhys as a writer both in her lifetime
and today.
Elaine Savory is Associate Professor of English at the New School University. Her publications include Jean Rhys (Cambridge, 1998), Out of the Kumbla: Women and Caribbean Literature (1990) and many essays on Caribbean and African literatures.