Rebecca

Description

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...' Working as a lady's companion, our heroine's outlook is bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. She accepts but, whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the brooding house Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is for ever kept alive by the forbidding housekeeper Mrs Danvers... An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, REBECCA is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.

Daphne du Maurier (1907-89) was born in London, the daughter of the famous actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the author and artist. In 1931 her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published. A biography of her father and three other novels followed, but it was the novel Rebecca that launched her into the literary stratosphere and made her one of the most popular authors of her day. In 1932, du Maurier married Major Frederick Browning, with whom she had three children. Many of du Maurier's bestselling novels and short stories were adapted into award-winning films, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. In 1969 du Maurier was awarded a DBE. She lived most of her life in Cornwall, the setting for many of her books.

From the opening sentence - "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again" - to the final - "And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea" - I was hooked ... Rebecca is one of the underrated classics of the 20th century ... Rebecca is a masterpiece in which du Maurier pulls off several spectacular high-wire acts that many great writers wouldn't attempt * Guardian * One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century, Rebecca has woven its way into the fabric of our culture with all the troubling power of myth or dream. A stunning book With one of the most evocative first lines ever, Daphne du Maurier's fifth novel has everything a reader could ask for . . . Psychologically astute and disturbingly romantic, Rebecca was an immediate bestseller on publication in 1938 and has cast a sinister spell ever since * Marie Claire * Her masterpiece . . . Seldom has a dead woman exercised such power beyond the grave. Rebecca will live for ever because du Maurier touches a fearful nerve, buried deep in the unconscious * The Times * It's the perfect winter book, brooding, dangerous and engrossing -- Kit de Waal * Sainsbury's Magazine * Addictive and breathtaking. Its blending of melodrama and subtlety is ingenious. The Cornish setting never quite leaves the imagination * Independent * A brilliantly constructed novel - the ultimate in psychological suspense, instantly gripping and haunting, Rebecca will stay with you for ever. * Psychologies * A mesmerising novel which reveals more on each reading It is the greatest psychological thriller of all time. I see du Maurier as a forerunner to Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, Gillian Flynn: she is the giant whose magnificent shoulders the rest of us stand upon What she did was build emotional landscapes that can be entered at will, in which difficult and untamable desires were given free rein. Maybe because of her relationship with gender, she was able to make worlds in which people and even houses are mysterious and mutable, not as they seem; haunted rooms in which disembodied spirits sometimes dance at absolute liberty * Guardian * I read this book more than twenty years ago, and must have read it a dozen times since. The characters are incredibly vivid, and the twists superb. It's the book every writer wishes they'd written -- Clare Mackintosh This 1930s gothic thriller is suspenseful and so well crafted. Its young, nameless heroine marries rich widower Maxim de Winter and returns with him to his mansion, Manderley, only to find the ghost of his first wife, Rebecca, still lingers * Good Housekeeping *