Jean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1894. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before starting to write in the late 1920's. Her novels, often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, were ahead of their timeand only modestly successful. Partly autobiographical, VOYAGE IN THE DARK was first published in 1934. From 1939 she lived reclusively, and was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with 'Wide Sargasso Sea' in 1966. She died in 1979.
Watch your market here. It's a book which depends for its values on the effectiveness of the handling of a difficult subject, and the subject will throw it out for your conservative customers. The story of a girl luxuriously brought up in the West Indies, who is cast adrift, with no training for building her own life, in England, and who slips, almost inevitably, into the sordid life of a prostitute. Not quite so clear cut as After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (her best known book here), but realism well above average. (Kirkus Reviews)