Cover of Rebecca

Rebecca

by Unknown Author

4.2
(45 ratings)
448 pages2020Little, Brown Book Group LimitedISBN 9780349014982

About this book

“Suddenly I saw a clearing in the dark drive ahead, and a patch of sky, and in a moment the dark trees had thinned, the nameless shrubs had disappeared, and on either side of us was a wall of colour, blood-red, reaching far above our heads. We were amongst the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery. The woods had not prepared me for them. They startled me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron plant I had seen before. I glanced at Maxim. He was smiling. 'Like them?' he said. I told him 'Yes,' a little breathlessly, uncertain whether I was speaking the truth or not, for to me a rhododendron was a homely, domestic thing, strictly conventional, mauve or pink in colour, standing one beside the other in a neat round bed. And these were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful I thought, too powerful; they were not plants at all.”

Publication Details

Publisher
Little, Brown Book Group Limited
Published
2020
Pages
448
ISBN
9780349014982
Language
en

About Unknown Author

Daphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 in London, England, United Kingdom, the second of three daughters of Muriel Beaumont, an actress and maternal niece of William Comyns Beaumont, and Sir Gerald du Maurier, the prominent actor-manager, son of the author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the novel Trilby. She was also the cousin of the Llewelyn Davies boys, who served as J.M. Barrie's inspiration for the characters in the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. As a young child, she met many of the brightest stars of the theatre, thanks to the celebrity of her father. These connections helped her in establishing her literary career, and she published some of her early stories in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. Her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931, and she continued writing successfull gothic novels in addition to biographies and other non-fiction books. Alfred Hitchcock was a fan of her novels and short stories, and adapted some of these to films: Jamaica Inn (1939), Rebecca (1940), and The Birds (1963). Other of her works adapted were Frenchman's Creek (1942), Hungry Hill (1943), My Cousin Rachel (1951), and "Don't Look Now" (1973). She was named a Dame of the British Empire. In 1932, she married Frederick "Boy" Browning, with whom she had three children, Tessa, Flavia and Christian. Her husband died in 1965, and she passed away on 19 April 1989 in Fowey, Cornwall. After her death, it was revealed that she was bisexual.

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