Morose devotees

A contributor to Bustle recommends '7 Books That Expanded My View Of The World' and one of them is

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys’ 1966 feminist take on Jane Eyre was my introduction to literary reimaginings, and it was a powerful education in the necessity of viewing the classics through the sociopolitical context in which they were written. Wide Sargasso Sea is largely narrated by Creole heiress Antoinette, Mr. Rochester’s eventual wife, who describes her childhood in postcolonial Jamaica, the loss of her family’s wealth following the abolition of slavery, her arranged marriage to the English Rochester, and the increasing abuse and dehumanization she suffers as his wife. It’s a nuanced, often painful examination of not only the oppression of women but also the long-lasting consequences of colonialism and the slave trade. (Arianna Rebolini)

Salon shares an excerpt from Lilly Dancyger's First Love: Essays on Friendship.

We weren’t the first or the last teenage girls to romanticize sadness and tragedy, of course. Before Plath there were Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson and the Brontë sisters, each with her own morose devotees.