QLitBabel: removed duplicate citation
'''''Quartet''''' is [[Jean Rhys]]'s 1928 breakthrough novel, set in Paris's bohemian café society. First published by [[Chatto & Windus|Chatto and Windus]], this was Rhys's first book other than her 1927 short story collection [[The Left Bank and Other Stories|''The Left Bank and Other Stories'']] (1927).
In the UK, ''Quartet'' was first released under the publisher's preferred title ''Postures'' which Rhys disliked. After being well received in the US as ''Quartet'' (1929), Rhys got the UK edition re-titled to her original choice of ''Quartet'', which alludes to four central characters comprising two couples.
Like various Jean Rhys novels, ''Quartet'' is autobiographical fiction. It is a ''[[roman à clef]]'' based on her extramarital affair and break up with her literary mentor [[Ford Madox Ford]], an English author and editor of [[The Transatlantic Review|''The Transatlantic Review'']] literary magazine.The affair occurred in Ford's Paris home under the eye of his common-law wife, Australian artist [[Stella Bowen]], while Rhys's husband Jean Lenglet was in jail.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2) Rodopi|isbn=978-90-04-32837-2|access-date=2020-03-19}}</ref><ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 3, expected 1)</ref><ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 3, expected 1)</ref>
Written in third-person narrative, ''Quartet'' is framed from the viewpoint of Rhys's fictional counterpart Marya (nicknamed Mado).
== Synopsis ==
Peripatetic young married couple Stephan and Marya Zelli stay in a dingy Paris hotel while Stephan, a fly-by-night Polish art dealer, conducts business. Reliant on Stephan as provider, Marya seldom questions his dealings. They live hand-to-mouth as his deal takes shape. When Stephan is charged with selling stolen artwork and sentenced to a year's jail Marya, stranded and alone in a foreign city, is destitute. At Stephan's urging from jail she moves in with avuncular Englishman H. J. Heidler and his painter wife Lois, who she knows socially. There she discovers Heidler's history of inviting young women to lodge in his spare room, initiating affairs with them as Lois turns a blind eye. When Marya visits Stephan in jail, Heidler and Lois object and discourage her from seeing him. Isolated under his roof and dependent on his charity, Marya succumbs to Heidler's advances. With Marya at their mercy, Heidler and Lois escort her around their social haunts in a charade of respectability, deflecting suspicion and gossip about the ''ménage à trois''. Obliged to comply, Marya suspects people guess the truth regardless. Tension mounts between Marya and Lois, which Heidler ignores. Released from jail, the once self-assured Stephan is broken and Marya guilt-ridden. Heidler pushes Marya to choose between himself and Stephan, while refusing to forfeit his own marriage to Lois. Torn, Marya pities Stephan, which he resents. As her affair with Heidler breaks down, Stephan bolts leaving Marya's fate in the hands of Heidler and Lois.
== Background ==
Rhys and her first of four husbands Jean Lenglet, a multilingual Dutch journalist and [[Deuxième Bureau|French Intelligence Service]] spy<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> met in London in 1917. After [[World War I]] they roamed Europe, marrying in The Hague in 1919. They moved between Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris and Vienna where, from 1920, Lenglet was as a secretary-interpreter with the [[Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control|Inter-Allied Commission of Control]]'s Japanese delegation, who monitored disarmament in [[Austria-Hungary]]. When the job transferred him to Budapest, Lenglet was caught using Commission money for [[Speculation|currency speculation]]. When he failed to repay the money in time, he and Rhys absconded to Paris with the Inter-Allied Commission on his trail. French solicitors meanwhile pursued Lenglet over a previous undissolved marriage (Rhys being the third of his five wives). In Paris on 28 December 1924 Lenglet was arrested, accused by his new employer, American travel agency Exprinter, of embezzling 23,421 francs. He denied the charge, claiming the company had given him the money for a transaction, but his defence was dismissed and on 10 February 1925 was sentenced to eight months at [[Fresnes Prison]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 3, expected 1)</ref>
This left Rhys destitute and panic-stricken. With Lenglet's agreement from jail, Rhys allowed herself to be taken in by Ford Madox Ford and Stella Bowen.
She had met the couple in 1924 when, penniless with Lenglet working away as a journalist, she tried selling some of his articles to Mrs H Pearl Adam, another journalist Jean met at a tea party. Thinking Lenglet's articles unmarketable, Mrs Adam perused Jean's diary of her time in London, Paris, Vienna and Budapest. Seeing literary potential, Mrs Adam helped edit and divide the diary into stories and sent Jean to Ford Madox Ford, who helped new writers.
Ford mentored Jean, publishing her first short story ''Vienne''<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> in [[The Transatlantic Review|''The Transatlantic Review'']] and introducing her to other contributors. At Ford and Stella's parties she met people like [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Gertrude Stein]], [[Gertrude Stein#Alice%20B.%20Toklas|Alice B. Toklas]] and painter [[Nina Hamnett]].
Under Ford and Bowen's roof, with Lenglet in jail, an affair developed between Jean Rhys and Ford, which Stella Bowen at first tolerated. She asked Jean to pose for paintings, gave her clothes and confided in her, outwardly befriending her but silently disapproving.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 2, expected 1)</ref>Presenting a respectable front, the couple took Jean out to [[Le Dôme Café]] and other intellectual gathering spots on the [[Boulevard du Montparnasse|Boulevarde du Montparnasse]], showing her off as Ford's protégé while rivalry grew between Stella and Jean, and tension formed between Stella and Ford.
By the time of Lenglet's prison release the Ford affair was unhidden and Lenglet felt betrayed. Soon after, due to his French criminal record Lenglet was extradited to his native Holland.
Ford and Stella sent Jean to the South of France, finding her a live-in job writing a book on reincarnation and interior design for [[Rudolph Valentino]]'s mother-in-law Winifred, second wife of American cosmetics millionaire [[Richard Hudnut]].
With that, the 'quartet' after which the novel is named was dissolved.
Jean Rhys revisited her relationships with Lenglet and Ford but neither lasted. Ford and Stella separated in 1927. Rhys and Lenglet formally separated in 1928, divorcing in 1933. They remained lifelong friends, bound partly by their daughter Maryvonne<ref></ref> who was three and in care at the time of Lenglet's imprisonment but later became his custodian.
This traumatic episode in Rhys's life is considered one her greatest creative catalysts, resulting in ''Quartet'' kickstarting her writing career.
[[Jonathan Cape]], who had published ''The Left Bank and Other Stories'', rejected ''Quartet'' as libellous, recognising the notable Ford Madox Ford in its plot. With the help of Rhys's subsequent husband, editor and literary agent Leslie Tilden Smith, ''Quartet'' was published in 1928 by [[Chatto & Windus|Chatto and Windus]].
''Quartet''<nowiki/>'s real life character counterparts each published their own version of this episode from their respective viewpoints, all fictionalised except for Stella Bowen's in her memoir ''Drawn from Life'' (1941). ''Quartet'' was the first published of the four. Ford Madox Ford's ''When the Wicked Man'' (1931) portrayed Rhys as hysterical drunken Creole journalist Lola Porter, who uses Joseph Notterdam (Ford's character). Jean Lenglet's version appeared under the ''nom de plume'' Édouard de Néve<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> in Dutch, French and English. His Dutch novel was called ''In de Strik'' (1932),<ref></ref> his French version was ''Sous les Verrous (1933)''<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>. Jean Rhys translated ''Sous les Verrous'' into English as ''Barred'' (1932)<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> for Lenglet, who dedicated it to her.
== Adaptations ==
The 1981 [[Merchant Ivory Productions|Merchant Ivory]] film [[Quartet (1981 film)|of the same name]], starring [[Isabelle Adjani]], [[Maggie Smith]] and [[Alan Bates]], won Adjani the [[Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress]] and Smith the [[Evening Standard British Film Awards|Evening Standard Awards]] Best Actress award.
== References ==
<references />
== Further Reading ==
Angier, Carole, ''Jean Rhys: Life and Work'', London, Little, André Deutsch, 1990
Pizzichini, Lilian ''The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys'', W. W. Norton & Company, 2009
<br />
[[Category:Novels]]
In the UK, ''Quartet'' was first released under the publisher's preferred title ''Postures'' which Rhys disliked. After being well received in the US as ''Quartet'' (1929), Rhys got the UK edition re-titled to her original choice of ''Quartet'', which alludes to four central characters comprising two couples.
Like various Jean Rhys novels, ''Quartet'' is autobiographical fiction. It is a ''[[roman à clef]]'' based on her extramarital affair and break up with her literary mentor [[Ford Madox Ford]], an English author and editor of [[The Transatlantic Review|''The Transatlantic Review'']] literary magazine.The affair occurred in Ford's Paris home under the eye of his common-law wife, Australian artist [[Stella Bowen]], while Rhys's husband Jean Lenglet was in jail.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2) Rodopi|isbn=978-90-04-32837-2|access-date=2020-03-19}}</ref><ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 3, expected 1)</ref><ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 3, expected 1)</ref>
Written in third-person narrative, ''Quartet'' is framed from the viewpoint of Rhys's fictional counterpart Marya (nicknamed Mado).
== Synopsis ==
Peripatetic young married couple Stephan and Marya Zelli stay in a dingy Paris hotel while Stephan, a fly-by-night Polish art dealer, conducts business. Reliant on Stephan as provider, Marya seldom questions his dealings. They live hand-to-mouth as his deal takes shape. When Stephan is charged with selling stolen artwork and sentenced to a year's jail Marya, stranded and alone in a foreign city, is destitute. At Stephan's urging from jail she moves in with avuncular Englishman H. J. Heidler and his painter wife Lois, who she knows socially. There she discovers Heidler's history of inviting young women to lodge in his spare room, initiating affairs with them as Lois turns a blind eye. When Marya visits Stephan in jail, Heidler and Lois object and discourage her from seeing him. Isolated under his roof and dependent on his charity, Marya succumbs to Heidler's advances. With Marya at their mercy, Heidler and Lois escort her around their social haunts in a charade of respectability, deflecting suspicion and gossip about the ''ménage à trois''. Obliged to comply, Marya suspects people guess the truth regardless. Tension mounts between Marya and Lois, which Heidler ignores. Released from jail, the once self-assured Stephan is broken and Marya guilt-ridden. Heidler pushes Marya to choose between himself and Stephan, while refusing to forfeit his own marriage to Lois. Torn, Marya pities Stephan, which he resents. As her affair with Heidler breaks down, Stephan bolts leaving Marya's fate in the hands of Heidler and Lois.
== Background ==
Rhys and her first of four husbands Jean Lenglet, a multilingual Dutch journalist and [[Deuxième Bureau|French Intelligence Service]] spy<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> met in London in 1917. After [[World War I]] they roamed Europe, marrying in The Hague in 1919. They moved between Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris and Vienna where, from 1920, Lenglet was as a secretary-interpreter with the [[Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control|Inter-Allied Commission of Control]]'s Japanese delegation, who monitored disarmament in [[Austria-Hungary]]. When the job transferred him to Budapest, Lenglet was caught using Commission money for [[Speculation|currency speculation]]. When he failed to repay the money in time, he and Rhys absconded to Paris with the Inter-Allied Commission on his trail. French solicitors meanwhile pursued Lenglet over a previous undissolved marriage (Rhys being the third of his five wives). In Paris on 28 December 1924 Lenglet was arrested, accused by his new employer, American travel agency Exprinter, of embezzling 23,421 francs. He denied the charge, claiming the company had given him the money for a transaction, but his defence was dismissed and on 10 February 1925 was sentenced to eight months at [[Fresnes Prison]].<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 3, expected 1)</ref>
This left Rhys destitute and panic-stricken. With Lenglet's agreement from jail, Rhys allowed herself to be taken in by Ford Madox Ford and Stella Bowen.
She had met the couple in 1924 when, penniless with Lenglet working away as a journalist, she tried selling some of his articles to Mrs H Pearl Adam, another journalist Jean met at a tea party. Thinking Lenglet's articles unmarketable, Mrs Adam perused Jean's diary of her time in London, Paris, Vienna and Budapest. Seeing literary potential, Mrs Adam helped edit and divide the diary into stories and sent Jean to Ford Madox Ford, who helped new writers.
Ford mentored Jean, publishing her first short story ''Vienne''<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> in [[The Transatlantic Review|''The Transatlantic Review'']] and introducing her to other contributors. At Ford and Stella's parties she met people like [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Gertrude Stein]], [[Gertrude Stein#Alice%20B.%20Toklas|Alice B. Toklas]] and painter [[Nina Hamnett]].
Under Ford and Bowen's roof, with Lenglet in jail, an affair developed between Jean Rhys and Ford, which Stella Bowen at first tolerated. She asked Jean to pose for paintings, gave her clothes and confided in her, outwardly befriending her but silently disapproving.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 2, expected 1)</ref>Presenting a respectable front, the couple took Jean out to [[Le Dôme Café]] and other intellectual gathering spots on the [[Boulevard du Montparnasse|Boulevarde du Montparnasse]], showing her off as Ford's protégé while rivalry grew between Stella and Jean, and tension formed between Stella and Ford.
By the time of Lenglet's prison release the Ford affair was unhidden and Lenglet felt betrayed. Soon after, due to his French criminal record Lenglet was extradited to his native Holland.
Ford and Stella sent Jean to the South of France, finding her a live-in job writing a book on reincarnation and interior design for [[Rudolph Valentino]]'s mother-in-law Winifred, second wife of American cosmetics millionaire [[Richard Hudnut]].
With that, the 'quartet' after which the novel is named was dissolved.
Jean Rhys revisited her relationships with Lenglet and Ford but neither lasted. Ford and Stella separated in 1927. Rhys and Lenglet formally separated in 1928, divorcing in 1933. They remained lifelong friends, bound partly by their daughter Maryvonne<ref></ref> who was three and in care at the time of Lenglet's imprisonment but later became his custodian.
This traumatic episode in Rhys's life is considered one her greatest creative catalysts, resulting in ''Quartet'' kickstarting her writing career.
[[Jonathan Cape]], who had published ''The Left Bank and Other Stories'', rejected ''Quartet'' as libellous, recognising the notable Ford Madox Ford in its plot. With the help of Rhys's subsequent husband, editor and literary agent Leslie Tilden Smith, ''Quartet'' was published in 1928 by [[Chatto & Windus|Chatto and Windus]].
''Quartet''<nowiki/>'s real life character counterparts each published their own version of this episode from their respective viewpoints, all fictionalised except for Stella Bowen's in her memoir ''Drawn from Life'' (1941). ''Quartet'' was the first published of the four. Ford Madox Ford's ''When the Wicked Man'' (1931) portrayed Rhys as hysterical drunken Creole journalist Lola Porter, who uses Joseph Notterdam (Ford's character). Jean Lenglet's version appeared under the ''nom de plume'' Édouard de Néve<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> in Dutch, French and English. His Dutch novel was called ''In de Strik'' (1932),<ref></ref> his French version was ''Sous les Verrous (1933)''<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref>. Jean Rhys translated ''Sous les Verrous'' into English as ''Barred'' (1932)<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)</ref> for Lenglet, who dedicated it to her.
== Adaptations ==
The 1981 [[Merchant Ivory Productions|Merchant Ivory]] film [[Quartet (1981 film)|of the same name]], starring [[Isabelle Adjani]], [[Maggie Smith]] and [[Alan Bates]], won Adjani the [[Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress]] and Smith the [[Evening Standard British Film Awards|Evening Standard Awards]] Best Actress award.
== References ==
<references />
== Further Reading ==
Angier, Carole, ''Jean Rhys: Life and Work'', London, Little, André Deutsch, 1990
Pizzichini, Lilian ''The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys'', W. W. Norton & Company, 2009
<br />
[[Category:Novels]]
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