Question: Who was born earlier, Jean Rhys or Mary McCarthy?

Context paragraphs:
Good Morning, Midnight (Rhys novel): Good Morning, Midnight is a 1939 modernist novel by the author Jean Rhys.  Often considered a continuation of Rhys' three other early novels, "Quartet" (1928), "After Leaving Mr Mackenzie" (1930) and "Voyage in the Dark" (1934), it is experimental in design and deals with a woman's feelings of vulnerability, depression, loneliness and desperation during the years between the two World Wars.  The book initially sold poorly—critics thought it well written, but too depressing—and after its publication Rhys spent a decade living in obscurity.  It was not until it was adapted into a theatrical production in 1949, and again into a radio play 1957 by the BBC, that Rhys was once again put into the spotlight.

Alexis Lykiard: Alexis Lykiard (born 1940) is a British writer of Greek heritage, who began his prolific career as novelist and poet in the 1960s.  His poems about jazz have received particular acclaim, including from Maya Angelou, Hugo Williams, Roy Fisher, Kevin Bailey and others.  He is also known as translator of Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont, Alfred Jarry, Antonin Artaud and many notable French literary figures.  In addition, Lykiard has written two highly praised intimate memoirs of Jean Rhys: "Jean Rhys Revisited" (2000) and "Jean Rhys: Afterwords" (2006).

Carole Angier: Carole Angier (born 30 October 1943) is an English biographer.  She was born in London and grew up in Canada before moving back to the UK in her early twenties.  She spent many years as a teacher, including stints at the Open University and Birkbeck College.  She is best known for her acclaimed biographies of the writers Jean Rhys and Primo Levi.  The former was shortlisted for the 1991 Whitbread Biography Award, and won the 1991 Writers' Guild Award for Non-Fiction.

Jean Rhys: Jean Rhys, CBE ( ; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979), born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams, was a mid-20th-century novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica, though she was mainly resident in England from the age of 16.  She is best known for her novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre".

Ramabai Espinet: Ramabai Espinet (born 1948) is an Indo-Caribbean poet, novelist, essayist, and critic from Trinidad and Tobago.  Espinet was born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago.  She attended York University in Toronto, Canada before earning a Ph.D. at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.  She currently teaches English at Seneca College.  Her writings on Euro-Creole women is influenced from works from Jean Rhys and Phyllis Shand Allfrey.  Most of Espinet's works relate to her Indo-Caribbean heritage.  Sister Vision Press published her first four works in Toronto, Canada.

Wide Sargasso Sea: Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 postcolonial novel by Dominica-born British author Jean Rhys.  The author lived in obscurity after her previous work, "Good Morning, Midnight", was published in 1939.  She had published other novels between these works, but "Wide Sargasso Sea" caused a revival of interest in Rhys and her work.  It was her most commercially successful novel, benefited as well by feminist exploration of power relationships between men and women.

Mary McCarthy (author): Mary Therese McCarthy (June 21, 1912 – October 25, 1989) was an American novelist, critic and political activist.

The Oasis (novel): "The Oasis" is a short satirical novel by American writer Mary McCarthy.  Published by Random House in 1949, it is McCarthy’s second novel.  Described by McCarthy as a “conte philosophique,” it tells the story of a group of embattled intellectuals, their quest to establish a Utopian community in the mountains of New England, and their failure to surmount ideological and personal differences for the greater good of the commune.  Doubling as a roman à clef, "The Oasis" borrows heavily from McCarthy’s experiences and frustrations with the short lived European-American Group, and serves more broadly as a critique of the “abstract idealism of intellectuals” and their inability to enact actual change.

Voyage in the Dark: Voyage in the Dark was written in 1934 by Jean Rhys.  It tells of the semi-tragic descent of its young protagonist Anna Morgan, who is moved from her Caribbean home to England by an uncaring stepmother, after the death of her father.  Once she leaves school, and she is cut off financially by the stepmother, Hester, Anna tries to support herself as a chorus girl, then becomes involved with an older man named Walter who supports her financially.  When he leaves her, she begins a downward spiral.  Like William Faulkner's "The Wild Palms", the novel features a botched illegal abortion.  Rhys' original version of ""Voyage in the Dark" ended with Anna dying from this abortion (see Bonnie Kime Scott's "The Gender of Modernism" for the original ending), but she revised it before publication to the more ambivalent and modernist ending in which Anna survives to return to her now-shattered life "all over again."  The novel is rich in Caribbean folklore and tradition and post-colonial identity politics, including black self-identification by its white protagonist.

Tigers Are Better-Looking: Tigers are Better-Looking is a collection of short stories written by famed Dominican author Jean Rhys, published in 1968 by André Deutsch and reissued by Penguin ten years later.  This collection combines eight stories written by Rhys during the 1950s (her period of obscurity) with another nine from her previous efforts in 1927's "The Left Bank and Other Stories".  In 1979, the title story from Rhys's collection was adapted into a UK-produced short film, directed by Hussein Shariffe.

Supporting paragraphs: Jean Rhys Mary McCarthy (author)
Answer: Jean Rhys