Daphne du Maurier with her husband, Major General Sir Frederick Browning, and their three children, at Menabilly, their home in Cornwall. (Photo by Keystone Features)
(Julius Levy grows up in a peasant family in a village on ...)
Julius Levy grows up in a peasant family in a village on the banks of the Seine. A quick-witted urchin caught up in the Franco-Prussian War, he is soon forced by tragedy to escape to Algeria. Once there, he learns the ease of swindling, the rewards of love affairs and the value of secrecy. Before he's twenty, he is in London, where his empire-building begins in earnest, and he becomes a rich and very ruthless man. Throughout his life, Julius is driven by a hunger for power, his one weakness his daughter, Gabriel
(The coachman tried to warn young Mary Yellan away from th...)
The coachman tried to warn young Mary Yellan away from the ruined, forbidding place on the rainswept Cornish coast. But Mary chose instead to honor her mother's dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and foreboding Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn. From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power. Mary never imagined that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls—or that she would fall in love with a handsome, enigmatic stranger. But what secrets is he hiding from her—and can she really trust him?
("Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again." With thes...)
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again." With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten—a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants.
(In this sweeping, bittersweet saga, spellbinding author D...)
In this sweeping, bittersweet saga, spellbinding author Daphne du Maurier recreates a most memorable and true love story. Honor Harris was glorious and vivacious. Sir Richard Grenville was a dashing colonel and a knight. They meet on the evening of her eighteenth birthday at the Duke of Buckingham's great ball and fall deeply in love.
(Philip Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orph...)
Philip Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is crushed that the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear.
(An ambitious, stunning, and seductive young woman, Mary A...)
An ambitious, stunning, and seductive young woman, Mary Anne finds the single most rewarding way to rise above her miserable cockney world: she will become the mistress to a royal duke. In doing so, she provokes a scandal that rocks Regency England. Mary Anne glitters with sex, scandal, corruption, and the privileged world of high society.
(Loaded with suspense and crackling wit, The Scapegoat tel...)
Loaded with suspense and crackling wit, The Scapegoat tells the double story of the attempts by John, the imposter, to escape detection by the family, servants, and several mistresses of his alter ego, and of his constant and frustrating efforts to unravel the mystery of the enigmatic past that dominates the existence of all who live in the chateau.
(Echoing the great fantastic stories of H. P. Lovecraft an...)
Echoing the great fantastic stories of H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, The House on the Strand is a masterful yarn of history, romance, horror, and suspense that will grip the reader until the last surprising twist.
(In The Doll, thirteen of du Maurier’s early shorter ficti...)
In The Doll, thirteen of du Maurier’s early shorter fictional works have been collected—each story written before the author’s twenty-third birthday and some in print for the first time since the 1930s. Compelling tales of human foibles and tragic romance, the stories in The Doll represent the emergence of a remarkable literary talent who later went on to create Jamaica Inn, The Birds, and other classic works.
(A classic of alienation and horror, 'The Birds' was immor...)
A classic of alienation and horror, 'The Birds' was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's sense of dominance over the natural world.
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English author and playwright, published in a number of different genres, such as tales of mystery, suspense, and drama, including the classic Gothic novel Rebecca.
Background
Daphne du Maurier was born in London, United Kingdom on May 13, 1907; one of three daughters of Sir Gerald du Maurier, an actor and theater manager, and Muriel Beaumont, an actress. Her grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
Education
Du Maurier was privately educated at home by governesses. In early 1925 du Maurier left England to attend finishing school at Camposena, a village near Meudon, outside of Paris, France.
Career
Du Maurier began writing during her adolescence and at the age of 18, she completed her first work, a collection of 15 short stories entitled The Seekers. Four years later she published her first short story, "And Now to God the Father," in the Bystander. Although the payment she received was modest, it encouraged her to continue writing.
In 1931 du Maurier published her first novel, The Loving Spirit. The book's success finally made it possible for her to gain financial independence from her family. The next year du Maurier published her second novel, I'll Never Be Young Again. It was very different from her first book in that it dealt with sexual issues, which was considered very racy for that time. Another novel, The Progress of Julius, followed in 1933.
In 1934, the year du Maurier's father died from colon cancer, the author wrote his biography, which proved to be very successful upon its publication later that same year. This was followed by another novel, Jamaica Inn, a suspenseful, melodramatic adventure story set in Cornwall complete with smugglers and villains in a style similar to R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. In 1937 du Maurier published a biographical work on her famous family entitled simply The Du Mauriers.
The year 1938 marked the publication of du Maurier's most acclaimed novel, Rebecca. Considered a classic work of Gothic fiction, it is a suspenseful psychological mystery that takes place on a "secretive and silent" estate known as Manderley. Rebecca was a huge success; it sold over a million copies and was made into a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Her theatre adaptation of the novel opened at the Queen's Theatre in London on March 5, 1940 in a production by George Devine, starring Celia Johnson and Owen Nares as the De Winters and Margaret Rutherford as Mrs Danvers. After 181 performances, the production transferred to the Strand Theatre, with Jill Furse taking over as the second Mrs De Winter and Mary Merrall as Mrs Danvers, with a further run of 176 performances.
In 1943 du Maurier wrote the autobiographically inspired drama The Years Between about the unexpected return of a senior officer, thought killed in action, who finds that his wife has taken his seat as Member of Parliament and has started a romantic relationship with a local farmer. It was first staged at the Manchester Opera House in 1944 and then transferred to London, opening at Wyndham's Theatre on 10 January 1945, starring Nora Swinburne and Clive Brook. The production, directed by Irene Hentschel, became a long-running hit, completing 617 performances. It was revived by Caroline Smith at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames on 5 September 2007, starring Karen Ascoe and Mark Tandy.
Her third play, September Tide, portrays a middle-aged woman whose bohemian artist son-in-law falls for her. The central character of Stella was originally based on Ellen Doubleday, the prominent wife of a United States book publisher. It imagined what Ellen might have been in an English setting and in different circumstances. Again directed by Irene Hentschel, it opened at the Aldwych Theatre on 15 December 1948 with Gertrude Lawrence as Stella. It closed in August 1949 after 267 performances.
From the 1940s through the 1970s, she published many more novels, novellas, biographies, autobiographies, and short-story collections. Du Maurier's growing interest in the supernatural was reflected in some of her later work in particular, which blended her usual suspense with a touch of the macabre. The combination translated well to the screen; in addition to Rebecca, seven of her novels and one short story, "The Birds," were made into movies.
In 1967, du Maurier branched out into yet another genre when she and her son collaborated on a travel book about the Cornish countryside entitled Vanishing Cornwall. It featured du Maurier's text accompanied by Christian Browning's photographs. In 1971 Browning made a film of their joint effort that also proved to be a great success.
Du Maurier spent her later years walking, traveling, and writing. By the late 1980s her health had declined to the point that she required nursing care, and on April 20, 1989, she died in her sleep at the age of 81 at her home in Par.
(Echoing the great fantastic stories of H. P. Lovecraft an...)
1969
Views
Daphne du Maurier’s novels are famous for their passion, tension and alarmingly candid psychological takes on men and women, often trapped in unhealthily obsessive relationships. The author was often categorised as a "romantic novelist", a term that she deplored, given her novels rarely have a happy ending, and often have sinister overtones and shadows of the paranormal. In this light, she has more in common with the "sensation novels" of Wilkie Collins and others, which she admired. An avid reader from early childhood, du Maurier was especially fond of the works of Walter Scott, W.M. Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, and Oscar Wilde. Other authors who strongly influenced her include R.L. Stevenson, Katherine Mansfield, Guy de Maupassant, and Somerset Maugham.
Quotations:
“But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.”
“Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story.”
“Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.”
“I have no talent for making new friends, but oh such genius for fidelity to old ones.”
“Sometimes it’s a sort of indulgence to think the worst of ourselves. We say, ‘Now I have reached the bottom of the pit, now I can fall no further,’ and it is almost a pleasure to wallow in the darkness. The trouble is, it’s not true. There is no end to the evil in ourselves, just as there is no end to the good. It’s a matter of choice. We struggle to climb, or we struggle to fall. The thing is to discover which way we’re going.”
“It wouldn't make for sanity would it, living with the devil.”
“The point is, life has to be endured, and lived. But how to live it is the problem.”
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”
Personality
An intriguing character, du Maurier once described herself as possessing two personas – one her female “self” and the other a male “lover” who she said did her writing. Before puberty, du Maurier thought she was a boy born in the wrong body, and some suggest this is why her fictive females don’t fare well.
Though she was beautiful, she had never wanted to participate in the masquerade of femininity. She didn’t want to be a mother (at least not of daughters) or wear dresses, though she painted her face even to go on her beloved rain-lashed walks. What she liked was to be “jam-along”, scruffy, perpetually in trousers, messing about in boats or living at large in her own head.
After her death in 1989, references were made to her reputed bisexuality; an alleged affair with Gertrude Lawrence, as well as her attraction to Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her United States publisher Nelson Doubleday, were cited.
Quotes from others about the person
Kate Kellaway: "Du Maurier was mistress of calculated irresolution. She did not want to put her readers' minds at rest. She wanted her riddles to persist. She wanted the novels to continue to haunt us beyond their endings."
The Guardian: “Although many of her novels rely on the trappings of the formulaic romance, her best works, such as Julius, The Parasites and The House on the Strand transcend the genre to achieve a powerful psychological realism. In Rebecca, meanwhile, Du Maurier gives a unique spin to the Cinderella myth to create a masterful study of obsession and sexual dominance that has fascinated generations of readers.”
Dan Schneider: “If, like me, Daphne Du Maurier’s name only connoted one of the films based upon her novels, you will see that she was a lot more — she was a hell of a great writer, and these are simply, with one exception, great, great short stories in every aspect of the craft. You will not regret reading them.”
John Barkham: “In every case Miss du Maurier painstakingly creates her atmosphere before she begins spinning her web. No fleeting moods or impressions here: the style is deliberate, the pace leisurely, and the stories hold up as stories.
Interests
Writers
Wilkie Collins, Walter Scott, W.M. Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, Oscar Wilde, R.L. Stevenson, Katherine Mansfield, Guy de Maupassant, Somerset Maugham
Connections
On April 8, 1932 Daphne du Maurier met Major Frederick Arthur Montague Browning, and both were immediately attracted to one another. They were engaged by June, and on July 19, 1932, they married in the Lanteglos Church near Fowey.
A little over a year after her marriage, du Maurier gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Tessa. Du Maurier had hoped for a boy, so the arrival of a girl was a source of considerable disappointment. She gave birth to her second daughter, Flavia, in April of 1937. On November 3, 1940, du Maurier gave birth to a son, Christian. Du Maurier’s husband died in 1965.
Daphne du Maurier: A Daughter's Memoir
In this memoir, Flavia Leng paints a powerful portrait of her mother, Daphne du Maurier. She presents an account of an unusual childhood, and reveals du Maurier's deep attachment to Cornwall and her withdrawal from family and friends.
1999
Daphne Du Maurier at Home
Hilary Macaskill explores the homes and landscapes of Daphne du Maurier's life, and how these relate to her work in sometimes unexpected ways. Generously illustrated with little-seen material from the family archive as well as new color photographs, this is a book which will enrich and transport anyone who has ever lost themselves between the covers of a Daphne du Maurier novel.
2013
Daphne du Maurier and her Sisters
Celebrated novelist Daphne Du Maurier and her sisters, eclipsed by her fame, are revealed in all their surprising complexity in this riveting new biography.
2013
Daphne Du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller
A definitive exploration of the life of the author of Rebecca reveals many secrets about her turbulent, intensely private life, reviewing her troubled childhood, unfortunate marriage, and sexual ambiguity.