Rebecca

Author:

Daphne Du Maurier was born in London in 1907 to her parents who were both active in the acting community; her father a manager and her mother an actress. She grew up in London and spent summers in Cornwall all while meeting prominent celebrities of the time through her parents. Du Maurier published her first novel in 1931 and married Fredrick Browning in 1932. They had three children, two girls and a boy, by 1940. By many accounts, Du Maurier was seen as antisocial, but many who knew her more personally remembered her as warm and humorous. While Rebecca was her most celebrated work, she had many other well-known pieces such as Frenchman’s Creek and her short story-turned-movie The Birds. While Du Maurier’s career was successful and her fame remains after her death, she faced accusations of plagiarism from Rebecca and The Birds while she was alive and rumors of alleged relationships with women came about after her death in 1989.

Learn More about Daphne Du Maurier

Three words to describe this read:

Elegant- Du Maurier’s writing is stylistic and beautiful. It’s truly the type of writing that I enjoy reading and aspire to recreate in my own way through my own work.

Unsettling- All throughout the book, it felt as if the narrator didn’t know the whole story (which turned out to be true). While there were several moments when the reader could find themselves at ease, there was always an underlying feeling of discomfort that wasn’t resolved until the last page.

Detailed- The writing is very descriptive and makes this dreamy setting seem so real. Although the tension was palpable throughout the book, you couldn't help but wish you were sitting in the rose garden with the characters anyway. And let’s be honest, who wouldn’t fantasize about living on a large estate near the sea in the English countryside?

Quote:

“I wanted to go back again, to recapture the moment that had gone, and then it came to me that if we did it would not be the same, even the sun would be changed in the sky…”

It was extremely difficult to choose my favorite quote from this book because there were so many that I felt spoke to me or were simply beautiful. I ended up selecting this one because I thought about the idea that every moment is unique and unable to be repeated before I read this line and sharing the thought with the main character, or more accurately the author, was a special moment.