The existentialist dimension in the novels of Jean Rhys

Since the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 the novels and short stories of Jean Rhys have enjoyed and extraordinary revival, while the authoress, herself, has managed to complement her work by two collections of short stories, Tigers Are Better-Looking and Sleep It Off, Lady, and by the unfinished autobiography, Smile Please. It is one of the tragic ironies of life that her last work should be an unfinished autobiography because it seems that everything else she wrote was but a prelude to the 'real' life of Jean Rhys.