JEAN RHYS AND THE EXACT WORD (CORRECTION).

JEAN RHYS AND THE EXACT WORD (CORRECTION). I realize I made a mistake here when I said that AFTER LEAVING MR. MACKENZIE began with the words in the title. I looked at the book again, and see that it begins, “After she had parted from Mr. Mackenzie, Julia Martin went to live in a cheap hotel on the Quai des Grands Augustins.” I am making the correction (and sliding in a rowback on the spelling in the title) because Jean Rhys was precise with her words, and she chose “parted from” rather than “left.” According to an article by Vanessa Thorpe, her editor told of how Rhys complained five years after the publication of WIDE SARGASSO SEA because the book had been published before it was finished. It turned out that Rhys thought the book contained two unnecessary words. One was “then”; the other was “quite.”