If Antoinette Cosway, a spirited Creole heiress, could have foreseen the terrible future that awaited her, she would not have married the young Englishman. Initially drawn to her beauty and sensuality, he becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to reach into her soul.
Saved, rescued, fished-up, half-drowned, out of the deep, dark river, dry clothes, hair shampooed and set... Set in a 1930s Paris of shabby hotel rooms, seedy bars and drunken encounters, Jean Rhys's semi-autobiographical portrayal of a young woman's sexual encounters is a searingly honest exploration of loneliness and yearning. Ten new titles in the colourful, small-format, portable new Pocket Penguins series
Set in a superficially romantic, between-wars Paris, QUARTET is a poignant tale of a lonely woman. Set against a background of winter-wet streets, Pernod in smoky cafes and cheap hotel rooms with mauve- flowered wallpaper, Marya tries to make something substantial of her life in order to withstand the unreality of her surroundings. Alone, her Polish husband in prison, she is taken up by an English couple who slowly overwhelm her with their passions. Jean Rhys's first novel is both poignant anddisturbingly intimate in its vivid depiction of a woman on her own.
'I knew he was imagining a really lovely girl - all curves, curls, heart and hidden claws' In stories that span the course of a lifetime - from childhood in the Caribbean to adolescent modelling in Paris; and from lonely adulthood to old age and beyond - here are women adrift, at sea, down but not quite out. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
"There was nothing of the blond beast about the gigolo - he was dark, slim, beautiful as some Latin god. And how soft his eyes were, how sweet his mouth ...
Horrible, horrible gigolo!" These four haunting stories from the author of Wide Sargasso Sea capture moments in the lives of European dilettantes, ingénues, businessmen, soldiers and artists at a time when the world was enjoying freedom after war. But with freedom comes the greater opportunity for self-destruction, and Rhys is at her redolent best when writing about the desires of people striving unsuccessfully after happiness.
This book contains La Grosse Fifi, Vienne, Tea with an Artist, and Mixing Cocktails. They are all taken from a selection from The Left Bank in Penguin's edition of Tigers Are Better Looking.
