44: Jean Rhys: Voyages in the Dark

The writer Jean Rhys is best known for Wide Sargasso Sea, her haunting prequel to Jane Eyre, yet her own life would have made for an equally compelling novel. Miranda Seymour, author of the definitive Jean Rhys biography I Used to Live Here Once, joins the Slightly Foxed team to follow Rhys’s often rackety life and shine light on her writing. Born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams on the island of Dominica, she dreamed of being an actress. And she did play many roles over the years: raconteur, recluse, wife (three times), grieving mother, enthusiastic drinker . . . But her most important role was that of a writer. We begin in the Caribbean with Smile Please, Rhys’s unfinished autobiography of her early years, where we meet a white creole girl who feels like an outsider. This feeling lingers, whether she is living in squalid London, on Paris’s Left Bank or in rural Devon. The women in her novels feel it too: Anna adrift in London in Voyage in the Dark, Julia leaving Paris in After Leaving Mr Mackenzie, Antoinette bound for Mr Rochester’s attic in Wide Sargasso Sea. The voice of Sacha rings out in a BBC radio play of Good Morning, Midnight many years after its publication, bringing Rhys into the spotlight. Embezzlement, incarcerations, fisticuffs in the street and an unsuccessful menage à trois all trouble her at times, yet she wins over many supporters along the way, among them the writer Ford Madox Ford, the editors Francis Wyndham and Diana Athill, and her loyal friend Sonia Orwell. Then we’re back in Paris, browsing the shelves of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, and selecting some New Year reading recommendations – post-apocalyptic science fiction by John Christopher, travels Along the Enchanted Way in Romania, and the artistic life of Alison vividly told in words and pictures by Lizzy Stewart. Books Mentioned We may be able to get hold of second-hand copies of the out-of-print titles listed below. Please get in touch with Jess in the Slightly Foxed office for more information. Subscribe to Slightly Foxed magazine Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (0:14) Miranda Seymour, I Used to Live Here Once (0:36) Jean Rhys, Smile Please (2:48) Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (8:10) Jean Rhys, The Collected Short Stories, which includes the stories mentioned in this episode: ‘Let Them Call it Jazz’; ‘Vienne’; ‘Till September Petronella’; ‘I Spy a Stranger’ and many more besides (9:31) Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (12:00) Jean Rhys, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (13:47) Jean Rhys, Quartet (22:05) Ford Madox Ford, When the Wicked Man is out of print (22:12) Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight (34:34) Jean Rhys, ‘I Spy a Stranger’ can be found in The Collected Short Stories (46:04) John Christopher, The Death of Grass(53:17) William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way (55:00) Lizzy Stewart, Alison (57:55) Related Slightly Foxed Articles Voyage in the Dark, Patricia Cleveland-Peck on the novels of Jean Rhys, Issue 4 Not-so-gay Paree, Rowena Macdonald on Jean Rhys, Quartet and Voyage in the Dark, Issue 51 Episode 38 of the Slightly Foxed podcast: Literary Drinking (29:40) Episode 42 of the Slightly Foxed podcast: Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure (55:25) Other Links Shakespeare and Company, Paris (48:45) Opening music: Preludio from Violin Partita No.3 in E Major by Bach The Slightly Foxed Podcast is hosted by Philippa Lamb and produced by Podcastable