From the Kent Messenger 9 October 2009.

A FORMER Maidstone pub could have been the birthplace of an award-winning literary masterpiece.

Living in Maidstone to visit her prison inmate husband, author Jean Rhys endured one of the lowest points in her life, but her time in the County Town may have helped inspire her greatest achievement - writing the Wide Sargasso Sea, her “prequel” to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

Jean’s husband, Max Hamer, a dis-barred solicitor, had been convicted of fraud and, when he was jailed at Maidstone Prison, she lived at the Ropemakers’ Arms in Bower Lane, to be near the prison for visits.

She told no one of her husband’s conviction, which brought with it financial hardship, but later in life she published the novel which was to bring her money, a literary award and a CBE.

An article in this month’s Bygone Kent magazine asks whether Ms Rhys, who preferred to use her pseudonym, wrote the novel while living in Maidstone.

Writing the novel, which tells the story of Mrs Rochester’s descent into madness, took years and was re-drafted many times.

It was her last book, and, according to Geoff French, writing in Bygone Kent, she said that completing the novel meant she had “earned death”.