Norton critical edition

Prequel to: Jane Eyre / Charlotte Brontë

List of illustrations -- Preface -- The text of 'Wide Sargasso Sea'. Introduction / by Francis Wyndham ; 'Wide Sargasso Sea' -- Backgrounds. [The Sargasso Sea] / Rachel L. Carson -- From 'Jane Eyre'. Jane Eyre and Bertha ; The ruined wedding ; Rochester's story ; Fire at Thornfield Hall / Charlotte Brontë -- Selected letters. To Peggy Kirkaldy (October 4, 1949) ; To Maryvonne Moerman (November 9, 1949) ; To Peggy Kirkaldy (December 6, 1949) ; To Morchard Bishop (January 27, 1953) ; To Francis Wyndham (March 29, 1958) ; To Selma Vaz Dias (April 9, 1958) ; To Francis Wyndham (September 27, 1959) ; To Diana Athill (August 16, 1963) ; To Francis Wyndham (March 7, 1964) ; To Francis Wyndham (April 14, 1964) ; To Francis Wyndham (1964) ; To Diana Athill (1966) ; To Diana Athill (March 9, 1966) / Jean Rhys -- The Bible is modern -- From 'Smile Please'. Books ; Meta ; My mother ; Black / white ; Facts of life -- From "Black Exercise Book" -- Criticism. Jean Rhys / Derek Walcott -- Modernist crosscurrents / Mary Lou Emery -- "The other side" : 'Wide Sargasso Sea' and 'Jane Eyre' / Michael Thorpe -- [The place of Jean Rhys and 'Wide Sargasso Sea'] / Kenneth Ramchand -- Carnival of psyche : Jean Rhys's 'Wide Sargasso Sea' / Wilson Harris -- Race and Caribbean culture as thematics of liberation in Jean Rhys' 'Wide Sargasso Sea' / Sandra Drake -- [History and narrative in 'Wide Sargasso Sea'] / Lee Erwin -- Burning down the house : The revisionary paradigm of Jean Rhys's 'Wide Sargasso Sea' / Caroline Rody -- Unquiet ghosts : The struggle for representation in Jean Rhys's 'Wide Sargasso Sea' / Mona Fayad -- ['Wide Sargasso Sea' and a critique of imperialism] / Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak -- [Two native voices in 'Wide Sargasso Sea'] / Benita Parry -- England : Dream and nightmare / Judith Raiskin -- Jean Rhys : A chronology -- Selected bibliography

Beautiful and wealthy Antoinette Cosway's passionate love for an English aristocrat threatens to destroy her idyllic West Indian island existence and her very life ; accompanied by notes and criticism

"Written over the course of twenty-one years and published in 1966, 'Wide Sargasso Sea', based on Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre', takes place in Jamaica and Dominica in 1839-45. Textual notes illuminate the novel's historical background, regional references, and the non-translated Creole and French phrases necessary to fully understand this powerful story. Backgrounds includes a wealth of material on the novel's long evolution, it's connections to 'Jane Eyre', and Rhys's biographical impressions of growing up in Dominica. Criticism introduces readers to the critical debates inspired by the novel with a Derek Walcott poem and eleven essays."--taken from publisher web site