For other uses, see Wide Sargasso Sea (disambiguation).
Wide Sargasso Sea
First edition cover
Author
Jean Rhys
Cover artist
Eric Thomas
Language
English
Genre
Postmodern novel
Set in
Jamaica, Dominica and Thornfield Hall, 1830s–40s
Publisher
André Deutsch (UK) W. W. Norton (US)
Publication date
October 1966
ISBN
0-233-95866-5
OCLC
4248898
Dewey Decimal
823.912
LC Class
PR6035 .H96
Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background to Mr. Rochester's marriage from the point-of-view of his wife Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress. Antoinette Cosway is Rhys's version of Brontë's "madwoman in the attic". Antoinette's story is told from the time of her youth in Jamaica, to her unhappy marriage to an English gentleman, Mr. Rochester, who renames her Bertha, declares her mad, takes her to England, and isolates her from the rest of the world in his mansion. Wide Sargasso Sea explores the power of relationships between men and women and discusses the themes of race, Caribbean history, and assimilation as Antoinette is caught in a white, patriarchal society in which she fully belongs neither to Europe nor to Jamaica.
Rhys lived in obscurity after her previous work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939. She had published other novels between these works, but Wide Sargasso Sea caused a revival of interest in Rhys and her work and was her most commercially successful novel.
In 2022, it was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.[1]
^"The Big Jubilee Read: A literary celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's record-breaking reign". BBC. 17 April 2022. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
WideSargassoSea is a 1966 novel by Dominican-British author Jean Rhys. The novel serves as a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Brontë's...
The SargassoSea (/sɑːrˈɡæsoʊ/) is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre. Unlike all other regions called seas, it...
and related interpretations, notably Jean Rhys's seminal 1966 novel WideSargassoSea. A famous line in the book is at the beginning of Chapter 38: "Reader...
film WideSargassoSea Rafe Spall in the 2006 television adaption WideSargassoSea. Trystan Gravelle in the 2016 BBC Radio Four dramatization Wide Sargasso...
growing up in a tropical West Indian climate. The 1966 parallel novel WideSargassoSea by Jean Rhys serves as a prequel to Brontë's novel. It is the story...
where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel WideSargassoSea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. In 1978...
and third seasons of The L Word. She has also appeared in the films WideSargassoSea and The Firm, and the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...
as well as appearing in several other television films including WideSargassoSea and Rubberheart. Hall's Hollywood fame grew when she starred in the...
the oceans for details. Sea has several definitions: A division of an ocean, delineated by landforms, currents (e.g., SargassoSea), or specific latitude...
Edward Rochester in John Duigan's 1993 film adaptation of Jean Rhys' WideSargassoSea. Reviewing this 'prequel' to Jane Eyre, Vincent Canby said in his...
from the original on 15 November 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019. "WideSargassoSea". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 15 November...
in Surrey, depicted Thornfield Hall in the 2006 film adaptation of WideSargassoSea, the Jane Eyre prequel by Jean Rhys. "North Lees Hall Hall". Retrieved...
Doctor Who Trish Webber Episode: "Fear Her" Sorted Nancy 6 episodes WideSargassoSea Christophine Television film 2007 Kitchen Christine Television film...
surname in the mid-1990s; her last credit with the longer spelling is WideSargassoSea (1993). After a 24 year absence from the screen, Beswick came out...
Murchison in Heartbeat, Grace Poole in the 2006 BBC adaptation of WideSargassoSea, as well as smaller roles in Dalziel and Pascoe, Carrie's War, Down...
Tales of the South Seas and Wonderful You. King is known to the British public for her portrayal of Amelie in WideSargassoSea, the 1993 film adaptation...
the Eyre Hall Trilogy is a sequel to both Jane Eyre and its prequel WideSargassoSea. Twenty-two years have passed since Jane became Mrs. Rochester, and...
literature. Suneeta Peres da Costa WideSargassoSea, Fifty Years on". Sydney Review of Books, 9 March 2016. "WideSargassoSea", Drama, BBC Radio 4. "Earl Lovelace"...
ratings of the most popular parallel novels; as of 2022, these included WideSargassoSea, Wicked, The Penelopiad, and Telemachus and Homer. Creating parallel...
Keith Television film 2006 Cracker DS McAllister Television film 2006 WideSargassoSea Edward Rochester Television film 2006 Dracula Jonathan Harker Television...
The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 Class & Society British WideSargassoSea Jean Rhys 1966 Class & Society British Emily of New Moon L. M. Montgomery...
to star in three Australian films: another of Duigan's pictures, WideSargassoSea; the drama The Custodian; and had her first leading role in the film...
Mountain 1997 Thomas Pynchon The Crying of Lot 49 1966 Jean Rhys WideSargassoSea 1966 Francoise Sagan Bonjour, Tristesse 1954 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn...
Global Information