WRITER

Jean Rhys

1890 - 1979

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Jean Rhys, ( REESS; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a British novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Jean Rhys has received more than 958,553 page views. Her biography is available in 39 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 34 in 2019). Jean Rhys is the 2,650th most popular writer (up from 2,840th in 2019), the 2nd most popular biography from Dominica and the most popular Dominican Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 960k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 53.96

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 39

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 3.44

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 4.52

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Voyage in the dark
1934
Sleep it off lady
Fiction
1976
After leaving Mr Mackenzie
English fiction
After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is a brilliant, yet brutal, portrait of a woman struggling to retrieve both life and love. For six months, Julia has lived alone in a drab Parisian hotel on an allowance from her ex-lover, Mr. Mackenzie. When his cheques stop, Julia decides to leave France and return to London. The tale of her ten day visit contains some of Jean Rhys's most sensitive, poignant writing. Past her prime, exhausted by broken love affairs and addled by drink, Julia is tragically unable to find what she really wants - love.
19694 / 5
Quatuor
1973
Quartet
British and irish fiction (fictional works by one author), Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction
1928
Good morning, midnight
City and town life, Fiction, Fiction, general
1967
Wide Sargasso Sea
stream of consciousness, Creoles, postcolonial literature
Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of citsion's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". A sensual and protected young woman, the narrator grows up in the lush, natural world of the Caribbean. She is sold into marriage to the cold-hearted and prideful Rochester, who succumbs to his need for money and his lust. Yet he will make her pay for her ancestors' sins of slaveholding, excessive drinking and nihilistic despair by enslaving her as a prisoner in his bleak British home.
1966
Rabindranath Tagore: a biographical study
Authors, Bengali, Bengali Authors, Biography
1915
Smile Please
Biography, English Novelists, Novelists, English
1979
Voyage in the Dark
Mistresses, London (England), Fiction
A haunting semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman from the Caribbean adrift in England.
1934

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Jean Rhys ranks 2,650 out of 7,302. Before her are Jules Supervielle, Mustafa Kamil Pasha, Jules Guesde, Olga Rozanova, Tom Sharpe, and John Cheever. After her are Alda Merini, Àngel Guimerà, Mirra Alfassa, Stanko Vraz, Polemon I of Pontus, and William Goldman.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1890, Jean Rhys ranks 108. Before her are Emilio Portes Gil, Jelly Roll Morton, Clarence Brown, Adolf Wagner, Harold Bride, and Princess Tatiana Constantinovna of Russia. After her are Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, Adolphe Menjou, Jüri Uluots, Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, Mauno Pekkala, and Vasili Eroshenko. Among people deceased in 1979, Jean Rhys ranks 101. Before her are Joseph Alcazar, Léonide Massine, David Butler, Princess Tatiana Constantinovna of Russia, Agop Dilâçar, and Wilfred Bion. After her are Helmut Hasse, August Heissmeyer, Marcel L'Herbier, James J. Gibson, Dolores Costello, and Leonid Bykov.

Others Born in 1890

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Others Deceased in 1979

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In Dominica

Among people born in Dominica, Jean Rhys ranks 2 out of 11. Before her are Charles Savarin (1943). After her are Kelvin Felix (1933), Nicholas Liverpool (1934), Eugenia Charles (1919), Henry Wilcoxon (1905), Roosevelt Skerrit (1972), Patricia Scotland (1955), Eliud Williams (1948), Patrick John (1938), Thea LaFond (1994), and Sylvanie Burton (1964).

Others born in Dominica

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Among WRITERS In Dominica

Among writers born in Dominica, Jean Rhys ranks 1. 

Dominican born Writers

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