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August 24, 1890


Jean Rhys (August 24, 1890 to May 14, 1979) was a twentieth century novelist remembered as much for her daring life as her respected novels. The woman who would later write Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) was, in 1913, alone and pregnant in London. Lancelot Grey Hugh Smith was a stockbroker and former love, but not the father. He helped her arrange an abortion. After the operation he sent her a Persian kitten, and then flowers everyday, for a week. This incident is reported in The Blue Hour: a Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini (2009). This recent biography is poorly sourced and written in a sensationalistic manner not conducive to accuracy. We know Jean Rhys was a cat lover, although, Carole Angier, author of the 1985, biography Jean Rhys, does not mention this. The incident of the Persian kitten is recalled in the autobiography published posthumously: Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography, (1979). We thus can be confident this picture of a kind man in the London of a century ago, is accurate.

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