VOYAGE IN THE DARK - Penguin Modern Classics

Anna Morgan, at the age of eighteen, has left her beloved West Indian island after her father's death and arrived in England, where she can't get used to the cold. Abandoned by her stepmother to earn her own living, she becomes a chorus girl and tours small towns all over the country, eventually drifting into the demi-monde of 1914 London, where she gradually realices that life will never be free and easy again. Alone and vulnerable, a long way from home and with no sense of direction, Anna is forced by circumstance to depend on men for her survival. Jean Rhys's account of Anna's sad journey from innocence to experience created a sensation when it was first published in 1934. Men had written about 'fallen women' before, but it was the first time a female writer had written about what it was like to be a woman without the benefit of husband, family or fortune. Decades ahead of its time and written with great insight, honesty and sensitivity, Voyage in the Dark is a classic portrait of a woman on her own.