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Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
Rhys, Jean (1890-1979) Wide Sargasso Sea, special copy presented to the author with signed note.
London: Andre Deutsch, 1966.
First edition, stated second impression, octavo; with a calligraphic presentation leaf reading, "Presented to Jean Rhys when, with this book, she won the Ninth W.H. Smith & Son 1,000 Literary Award for 1965/66," in red and black ink dated December 13, 1967 and bound in before the first free flyleaf, with short autograph not by Rhys tipped into the preliminaries presenting this copy to Sonia Orwell, "For Sonia, with love from Jean, March 21, 1974"; in a presentation binding of full blue morocco, spine gilt-lettered, narrow gilt-decorated turn-ins, marbled endpapers (spine sunned, boards slightly bowed, faint spotting to foredges); 7 1/2 x 4 3/4 in.
After her success as a writer throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the onset of the Second World War prompted Jean Rhys to fade from the public eye. She left London in 1939, relocating to a small seaside village in the English countryside. There, she ceased regular writing and eventually lived in impoverished obscurity. Two decades later, she was rediscovered when actress and writer Selma Vaz Diaz placed an ad in a London newspaper asking for information about Rhys's whereabouts, hoping to secure rights to dramatize Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight for radio. The pair struck up a friendship, with Vaz Diaz introducing her to editor friends who encouraged Rhys to resume writing. She started working on Wide Sargasso Sea in earnest shortly after.
Years of mishaps and delays related to Rhys's personal life and living conditions prevented her from finishing the manuscript until 1966. Despite the delays, Wide Sargasso Sea became her best-known work and rocketed her back into the spotlight. Rhys received help and support from many literary figures along the way, including, Sonia Brownell (1918-1980), George Orwell's widow. Sonia Brownwell Orwell, a London literary hostess, was instrumental in the revitalization of Rhys's career.
