Voyage in the Dark (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Jean Rhys (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 2000 | Series: Penguin Modern Classics

"Voyage In The Dark" was first published in 1934 , but it could have been written today. It is the story of an unhappy love affair, a portrait of a hypocritical society, and an exploration of exile and breakdown; all written in Jean Rhys' hauntingly simple and beautiful style. Eighteen, on her own and independent as much through circumstance as character, Anna has exchanged the West Indies of her childhood for the cold greyness of England, with its narrow streets and narrower rules. As she drifts towards the demi-monde of 1914 London, she comes to realise that life will never be so free and easy again. Her childish dreams have been replaced by the harsher reality of living in a man's world, where all charity has its price.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (August 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141183950
• ISBN-13: 978-0141183954
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #977,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Captures a place and time, March 28, 2006

By 

VanGo "This place is dead anyway" (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voyage in the Dark (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

This is an enjoyable, if short, early novel by the once forgotten British writer, Jean Rhys, who’s celebrated novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, contains the same inspiration - that of her upbringing in the Caribbean.

Essentially autobiographical, she tells the story of Anna Morgan, a 19 year old girl, recently arrived in London from Dominica (Rhys was born and raised on the small Caribbean island of Dominica). Evoking a penurious existence of cold London bed sits, surrounded by bleak fog and bad food. (Unsurprising considering Dominica is famed for its lush habitat, “The Nature Island of the Caribbean”).

She relates the people that Anna encounters who invariably are sexually predatory men, selfish and jealous women and cold hearted relatives. But Anna is also a callow youth, cold towards everyone she meets and so I couldn’t relate to her, but mainly as she acted impulsively and without reason.

However, this novel was ahead of its time in describing the alienation of a newly arrived emigrant and also the situation and plight of women when sick or unemployed. In the absence of a social welfare system, Rhys portrays the women who relied on finding a man to look after them, and also the men who used them for their own ends.

Despite it having some insights into the world of London and a woman’s place in it at a certain time period, I don’t think it’s a fully appreciated work unless read together with those of her other earlier novels, perhaps as part of a collected works series.