Jean Rhys’s affair with her former mentor, the married writer and editor Ford Madox Ford, provided the raw material for her first novel. Initially rejected by Rhys’s publisher Jonathan Cape for being potentially libellous, Quartet was eventually published in 1928 by Chatto & Windus. Quartet is one of three books written about the love triangle – one by each of its participants. Rhys’s is far the most revisited.

Former chorus girl Marya Zelli finds herself alone and adrift in 1920s Paris after her husband is unexpectedly arrested. Amid a backdrop of shabby hotel rooms, hazy, smoky cafés, and a glamorous yet indifferent circle of artists and intellectuals, Marya is drawn into the orbit of a mysterious English couple. Their intense desires gradually draw her into their dysfunctional dynamic.

In the 1970s, three of Rhys’s books were rereleased by Vintage Random House with fashion photography-style, soft-focus covers credited to Antoni Alba and butter yellow spines. This is one of the set.