SOURCE: Savory, Elaine. “Brief Encounters: Rhys and the Craft of the Short Story.” In Jean Rhys, pp. 152-76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Savory traces Rhys's development as a short story writer and describes her revision process.

I will post you the story tomorrow nearly three weeks too late … Its not right yet, too slow at the start too hurried at the end …

(Letter to Francis Wyndham, 6 March 1961)

I will finish Leaving School & Mr. Ramage A bit sentimental perhaps, and the West Indies as they were sound unreal, but I cant help that.

(Letter to Olwyn Hughes, 25 February 1966)

Yesterday I posted a letter to Diana explaining the corrections I'm anxious to make in ‘Fifi’ and ‘Vienne’. With ‘Fifi’ its just a matter of deleting a few paragraphs but ‘Vienne’ is more complicated.

The chapter headings must go of course and be replaced by spaces but...