Person    | Female  Born 24/8/1890  Died 14/5/1979

Jean Rhys

Categories: Literature

Countries: Caribbean Islands, France

Writer. Born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams in Hillsborough Street, Roseau, Dominica. She moved to England in 1910 and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After marrying in 1919, she moved to Paris where she met many writers and artists, including James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. In 1927 she published her first work 'The Left Bank and Other Stories'. Married twice and had a lover/mentor in Ford Madox Ford. She disappeared from public life for many years, but re-emerged in 1966 when her best known novel 'The Wild Sargasso Sea' was published. Died at the County Hospital, Exeter.

Diana Athill edited her later works and was also part of the support network necessary for Rhys to live and work. This include: Sonia Orwell (George Orwell's widow) and Diana Melly (George Melly's wife).

On the subject of names: She adopted the pen name 'Jean Rhys' in 1922, 2 or 3 years after she had married her first husband, who was born Willem Johan Marie Lenglet, known as Jean Lenglet and published as Édouard de Nève. She assumed her husband's, assumed, first name, albeit with different pronounciations. The Waughs' friends had to resort to 'he-Evelyn' and 'she-Evelyn'.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Jean Rhys

Commemorated ati

Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys, 1890 - 1979, writer lived here in flat 22, 1936 - 1938. English H...

Read More

Other Subjects

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows

Written by Kenneth Grahame, much of it based on a series of letters to he wrote to his son.  First published October 1908.

Fiction, Fictional, Literature

1 memorial
Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins

Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins

Anthony Hope Hawkins was born on 9 February 1863 at Clapton, Middlesex (now Greater London), the last of the three children of the Reverend Edwards Comerford Hawkins (1827-1906) and Jane Isabella H...

Person, Law, Literature, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine

German poet and essayist. Born Dusseldorf. Died Paris.

Person, Literature, Poetry, France, Germany

1 memorial
Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (Jnr)

Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (Jnr)

Born 76 Sloane Street, Chelsea. Second baronet. Politician and writer. As a rising member of parliament, he was regarded as a future prime minister. He fell from grace when he was cited in the divo...

Person, Literature, Politics & Administration

2 memorials
Dr Samuel Johnson

Dr Samuel Johnson

Essayist, biographer, lexicographer and speaker of quotes. Born Lichfield, Staffordshire. Left home and travelled to London with David Garrick. "When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; f...

Person, Literature, Seriously Famous

15 memorials