Wide Sargasso Sea (Penguin Modern Classics)
£6.70£7.60 (-12%)
Her grand attempt to tell what she felt was the story of Jane Eyre’s ‘madwoman in the attic’, Bertha Rochester, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea is edited with an introduction and notes by Angela Smith in Penguin Classics.
Born into the oppressive, colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica, white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty and sensuality. After their marriage, however, disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness, and her husband into the arms of another novel’s heroine. This classic study of betrayal, a seminal work of postcolonial literature, is Jean Rhys’s brief, beautiful masterpiece.
Jean Rhys (1894-1979) was born in Dominica. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before moving to Paris, where she began writing and was ‘discovered’ by Ford Madox Ford. Her novels, often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, were ahead of their time and only modestly successful. From 1939 (when Good Morning, Midnight was written) onwards she lived reclusively, and was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with her account of Jane Eyre’s Bertha Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea, in 1966.
If you enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea, you might like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, also available in Penguin Classics.
‘She took one of the works of genius of the nineteenth century and turned it inside-out to create one of the works of genius of the twentieth century’
Michele Roberts, The Times
NOTE: The book is a 2000 reissue of a 1997 edition.
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Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (30 Mar. 2000), Penguin Classics |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 192 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0141182857 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0141182858 |
| Dimensions | 19.8 x 1.1 x 12.9 cm |
by Florendi M.
Read Jane eyre after if u haven’t already! Very good
by Stephan
Great back story to Jane Eyre.
by Pamela Scott
I’ve read other books by the author and enjoyed them. I bought this to read a part of a reading challenge a couple of years ago as I planned to read it in conjunction with Jane Eyre. It didn’t happen and this was left on my shelf gathering dust. I haven’t read Jane Eyre so I have no idea if this would affect my reading of Wide Sargasso Sea. I really enjoyed this book. It’s similar in length and style to other books I’ve read by the author. This is a powerful book and so much is packed into such scant pages. The book is split into three parts which examine Antoinette’s life at different points before, during and when she is the mad woman in the attic, the first Mrs Rochester, touching the events and tragedy that steer the course of her life. I had such a good time with this and didn’t want the story to end. It’s very dark at times but not quite as dark as I expected.
by Michael O’Halloran
Well it,s a book so strangely enough I used this product for reading.
by Bluecashmere.
This is an unashamedly political novel. Jean Rhys had experienced little success as a novelist until the publication of this book, which was to catapult her to the front line of English novelists and was to remain the most widely read of her novels. Although the author gives the impression that the novel sprung from simple feelings of sympathy for Bertha as she is presented in ‘Jane Eyre’, the actuality is a novel that is strongly feminist and vehemently anti-colonialist. In this respect it is very much in line with the politically correct, wokism cultural values that have been so aggressively canvassed over recent years.
It is a kind of prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s novel. What we have is Rhys’ take on the circumstances of the ‘mad woman in the attic’. From her position as a Creole heiress fallen on hard times, we trace her life, significantly through many of her own words. Antoinette Cosway, as she becomes in Rhys’ book, is trapped into marriage with an English gentleman, who is to treat her with great cruelty, while indulging himself in unbridled licentiousness. In due course she accompanies Mason to England, now with the name Bertha, to be isolated in the attic of Thornfield Hall – ‘the great house’ as Antoinette refers to it. Meanwhile the substance of Bronte’s story runs parallel with Bertha’s fate. There is of course much more, including the section on Antoinette’s relationship with Grace Poole.
The book was written in the 1960s, so it can be argued that it shows remarkable foresight via its political, cultural and social attitudes. At the same time, many readers are likely to find the style awkward and rather wooden. The book is probably more of a challenge to read than ‘Jane Eyre’. There is no denying that it is an important book and this edition comes in a particularly attractive form.
by Janet
It came highly recommended but not my type. Gave up!
by Brida
WIDE SARGASSO SEA is the ‘prequel’ to “Jane Eyre”. Through this short novel, Jean Rhys has given a voice to the mad woman in Rochester’s attic; his first wife.
The book has three parts and each part sees a different narrator. Part one takes place during Antoinette’s childhood and it is she who narrates. Part two takes place just after Rochester and Antoinette marry and it is Rochester who narrates. Then finally part three, which takes place in England. Antoinette is now within the attic of Thornfield Hall. At the beginning of part three, we hear briefly from Grace Poole, Antoinette’s guard, we then hear the remainder from Antoinette herself.
Personally, this short novel really came to life during parts two and three. I found it interesting that during part two – following the marriage of Antoinette and Rochester – we hear the story from his point of view. Rhys wrote this novel to give the mad woman in the attic a voice, yet here she takes it away again to a certain degree. Although this is not meant as a criticism on my part, it is interesting to ponder why.
However depsite all this, WIDE SARGASSO SEA is a beautiful, fraught novel of love, obsession, death, folklore and madness. There are many layers to this little book and many themes – for example, there is a recurrent theme of dreams and mirrors. Rhys is also an expert at not only creating very believeable characters but also at bringing the location to life. The way that she describes the forest, through the eyes of Rochester, really helps you to understand just how hostile he finds the foreign place he is living in with his new bride.
I loved this book. Regardless of whether you have read “Jane Eyre” or not, there is much to enjoy here. I’m really looking forward to discussing it with my bookclub.
Oh, and a final comment on this particular edition – I highly recommend it. I read this book in preparation for a bookclub; the introduction, explanatory notes etc, were very informative. And, as each page has small line numbers next to the text, the commentary does not have to get in the way of your reading experience – if you want the explanation, you just turn to the back of the novel and find the relevant note.