Written over the course of twenty-one years and published in 1966, Wide Sargasso Sea, based on Charlotte Bront?’s Jane Eyre, takes place in Jamaica and Dominica in 1839–45. Textual notes illuminate the novel’s historical background, regional references, and the non-translated Creole and French phrases necessary to fully understand this powerful story.

Backgrounds includes a wealth of material on the novel’s long evolution, it connections to Jane Eyre, and Rhys’s biographical impressions of growing up in Dominica.

List of Illustrations

Preface

The Text of Wide Sargasso Sea

　Introduction by Francis Wyndham

　Wide Sargasso Sea

Backgrounds

　Rachel L. Carson·[The Sargasso Sea]

　Charlotte Bront?·From Jane Eyre

　　[Jane Eyre and Bertha]

　　[The Ruined Wedding]

　　[Rochester’s Story]

　　[Fire at Thornfield Hall]

　Jean Rhys·Selected Letters

　　To Peggy Kirkaldy (October 4, 1949)

　　To Maryvonne Moerman (November 9, 1949)

　　To Peggy Kirkaldy (December 6, 1949)

　　To Morchard Bishop (January 27, 1953)

　　To Francis Wyndham (March 29, 1958)

　　To Selma Vaz Dias (April 9, 1959)

　　To Francis Wyndham (September 27, 1959)

　　To Diana Athill (August 16, 1963)

　　To Francis Wyndham (March 7, 1964)

　　To Francis Wyndham (April 14, 1964)

　　To Francis Wyndham (1964)

　　To Diana Athill (1966)

　　To Diana Athill (March 9, 1966)

　The Bible is Modern

　From Smile Please

　　Books

　　Meta

　　My Mother

　　Black/White

　　Facts of Life

　　From "Black Exercise Book"

　Criticism

　　Derek Walcott·Jean Rhys

　　Mary Lou Emery·Modernist Crosscurrents

　　Michael Thorpe·"The Other Side": Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre

　　Kenneth Ramchand·[The Place of Jean Rhys and Wide Sargasso Sea]

　　Wilson Harris·Carnival of Psyche: Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

　　Sandra Drake·Race and Caribbean Culture as Thematics of

　　Liberation in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

　　Lee Erwin·[History and Narrative in Wide Sargasso Sea]

　　Caroline Rody·Burning Down the House: The Revisionary Paradigm of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

　　Mona Fayad·Unquiet Ghosts: The Struggle for Representation in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

　　Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak·[Wide Sargasso Sea and a Critique of Imperialism]

　　Benita Parry·[Two Native Voices in Wide Sargasso Sea]

　　Judith Raiskin·England: Dream and Nightmare

Jean Rhys: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography