SOURCE: A review of The Collected Short Stories, in World Literature Today, Vol. 62, No. 3, Summer, 1988, p. 497.

Here, Chase praises Rhys for her ability to "bring to keen life the spiritual and physical atmosphere of the locales and eras she is writing about. "

Jean Rhys's stories fall into three groups: those written in the twenties, those from the sixties, and those written or completed when Rhys was an octogenarian. Some are slight, some less than two pages. Others are rather puzzling, but all are offbeat and highly original—in short, completely sui generis. They are "sad . . . told in a voice of great charm," states Diana Athill [in her introduction to Jean Rhys: The Collected Short Stories],> but they are not all sad. Some are wryly ironic, whereas others are lighthearted. A great many of them are set in Paris, others in London, still others in Dominica in the West...