Her grand attempt to tell what she felt was the story of Jane Eyre's" 'madwoman in the attic' Bertha Rochester Jean Rhys' " Wide Sargasso Sea" is edited with an introduction & notes by Angela Smith in " Penguin Classics". Born into the oppressive colonialist society of 1930s Jamaica white Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent beauty & sensuality. After their marriage however disturbing rumours begin to circulate which poison her husband against her. Caught between his demands & her own precarious sense of belonging Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness & her husband into the arms of another novel's heroine. This classic study of betrayal a seminal work of postcolonial literature is Jean Rhys' brief beautiful masterpiece. Jean Rhys (1894-1979) was born in Dominica. Coming to England aged 16 she drifted into various jobs before moving to Paris where she began writing & was 'discovered' by Ford Madox Ford. Her novels often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities were ahead of their time & only modestly successful. From 1939 (when " Good Morning Midnight" was written) onwards she lived reclusively & was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with her account of Jane Eyre's Bertha Rochester " Wide Sargasso Sea" in 1966. If you enjoyed " Wide Sargasso Sea" you might like Charlotte Bronte's " Jane Eyre" also available in " Penguin Classics". " She took one of the works of genius of the nineteenth century & turned it inside-out to create one of the works of genius of the twentieth century". (Michele Roberts " The Times")."