Frequently Mentioned Works

The three works mentioned here were published in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at the beginning of the resurgence of interest in Jean Rhys. Though not necessarily the most comprehensive or informative works, they are seminal founding sources in the relatively young body of critical literature on Rhys. A great many of the contemporary publications about Rhys refer back to these three sources; as such, a researcher would be wise to investigate these so as have an informed background when studying other texts.

• Alvarez, Alfred. “The Best Living English Novelist.” New York Times Book Review. 17 March 1974: 6-7.
  
  Almost single-handedly, Alfred Alvarez’s review restored Jean Rhys to the critical consciousness when she was 84 years old. Through the 1950s and 60s Rhys had been largely ignored, but this rave review of the “best living English novelist” rescued her from obscurity. Alvarez’s brief but glowing review of several of Rhys’s works is short, readable, and insightful.
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• Angier, Carole. Jean Rhys. New York, NY: Viking, 1985.
  
  At 122 pages, this biography/literary criticism is much shorter than Angier’s book on Rhys that was published five years later in 1990. As one of the first serious studies of Rhys, this succinct volume is naturally one of the most cited. Furthermore, the detail and intimacy contained in Angier’s narrative style makes it enjoyable as a story, not just as an information source.
  PR6035 .H96 Z62 1985
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• Wolfe, Peter. Jean Rhys. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.
  
  English professor Wolfe wrote the first book-length study of Rhys that has had any lasting power. His straightforward, chronological approach suffers occasionally from lofty prose, but in general this methodical criticism of all Rhys’s works deserves reviewing. It is Wolfe who helps set the tone for all subsequent Rhys criticisms.
  PR6035 .H96 Z94
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