{"product_id":"wide-sargasso-sea-2","title":"Wide Sargasso Sea","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of the BBC''s ''100 Novels that Shaped the World''\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJean Rhys''s spell-binding novel \u003ci\u003eWide Sargasso Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, inspired by Jane Eyre and winner the Royal Society of Literature Award is beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e''There is no looking glass here and I don''t know what I am like now... Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?''\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf Antoinette Cosway, a spirited Creole heiress, could have foreseen the terrible future that awaited her, she would not have married the young Englishman. Initially drawn to her beauty and sensuality, he becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to reach into her soul. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals, unaware that in taking away her identity he is destroying a part of himself as well as pushing her towards madness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSet against the lush backdrop of 1830s Jamaica, Jean Rhys''s powerful, haunting masterpiece was inspired by her fascination with the first Mrs Rochester, the mad wife in Charlotte Brontë''s Jane Eyre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Compelling, painful and exquisite'' \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Brilliant. A tale of dislocation and dispossession, which Rhys writes with a kind of romantic cynicism, desperate and pungent'' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Rhys turns a menacing cipher into a grieving, plausible young woman, and one whose story says whole worlds about global mixtures, about the misunderstandings between the colonized, the colonizers and the people who can''t easily say which they are'' \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1890, the daughter of a Welsh doctor and a white Creole mother, and came to England when she was sixteen. Her first book, a collection of stories called \u003ci\u003eThe Left Bank\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 1927. This was followed by \u003ci\u003eQuartet\u003c\/i\u003e (originally Postures, 1928), \u003ci\u003eAfter Leaving Mr Mackenzie\u003c\/i\u003e (1930), \u003ci\u003eVoyage in the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e (1934) and \u003ci\u003eGood Morning, Midnight\u003c\/i\u003e (1939). None of these books was particularly successful and with the outbreak of war they went out of print. Jean Rhys dropped from sight until nearly twenty years later she was discovered living reclusively in Cornwall. During those years she had accumulated the stories collected in \u003ci\u003eTigers are Better-Looking\u003c\/i\u003e. In 1966 she made a sensational reappearance with \u003ci\u003eWide Sargasso Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the W. H. Smith Award. Her final collection of stories, \u003ci\u003eSleep It Off Lady\u003c\/i\u003e, appeared in 1976 and \u003ci\u003eSmile Please\u003c\/i\u003e, her unfinished autobiography, was published posthumously in 1979. Jean Rhys died in 1979.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57315258728830,"sku":"NW9780241951552","price":9.65,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9780241951552.jpg?v=1778247708","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/products\/wide-sargasso-sea-2","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}