"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Is the famous quote to start off Daphne du Maurier's top selling novel Rebecca. The quote sets the tone for the whole book. The narrator, who never receives a name, is a poor girl who meets a wealthy young man at a hotel where she works and they hit it off quickly. After a few short weeks of knowing each other, the man, Maxim de Winter, asks for her hand in marriage, she accepts and he brings her to his estate called Manderley. The narrator had no ideas what she was getting herself into when she married Maxim. The novel keeps you on your toes and makes you want to learn what happens next. You have to read up to the very last page and once you get there, its jaw dropping! The novel "Rebecca" shows us as readers how insecure and intimidated a woman is by another woman. Throughout the book you'll see how Daphne du Maurier put some of her own real life events in her novel.
Daphne du Maurier was born May 13, 1907 in London, England. Du Maurier came from a very artistic family. Her grandfather, George du Maurier, was a successful Victorian novelist. Daphne's parents were both actors. Her older sister, Angela, was a writer and her younger sister, Jeane, was a painter. Daphne was the second of three daughters. Daphne was a tomboy at heart and became her father's favorite because he had no sons. When Daphne had children, she had two girls, Tessa and Flavia, and one boy, Christian (known as "Kits"). Kits was her favorite. When Daphne was 20, she visited the coast of Cornwall where she later lived. Cornwall became her home and where she completed most of her work. Most importantly, this is the place where she wrote one of her most famous novels, Rebecca, which was published in 1938. Du Maurier married a man named Major Tommy "Boy" Browning. Their marriage was rocky, especially when they both cheated on each other, but they stayed together.
