orig. Ella Gwendolen Rees William
born Aug. 24, 1890, Roseau, Dominica, Windward Islands, West Indies
died May 14, 1979, Exeter, Devon, Eng.
Dominican-born British novelist.
Rhys left the West Indies for London to study acting at age 16. She later moved to Paris, where she was encouraged to write by Ford Madox Ford . She earned acclaim for short stories and novels set in the bohemian world of Europe in the 1920s and '30s, including Good Morning, Midnight (1939). After settling in Cornwall, she published nothing for nearly three decades before producing Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), a memorable novel about Mr. Rochester's mad first wife in Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre (see Brontë sisters ); and two story collections.