Monday, June 4, 2012

Spotlight on Daphne du Maurier



Daphne du Maurier was born in London, England, in May 1907, the daughter of the actor Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of the author George du Maurier. Her first novel The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931.

She lived in Cornwall for many years and chose to set many of her novels in the region. Her most famous novel was Rebecca, which was adapted to the big screen by Alfred Hitchcock. Many of her other novels were also adapted including some whith a historical setting - Frenchman's Creek, Hungry Hill and Jamaica Inn.  She wrote both fiction (she was known as a romantic novelist but also wrote other genres) and non-fiction (including biographies and plays) . She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1969 and died in April 1989.

She has a long list of published works, some of which have an historical setting:

Fiction
The Loving Spirit (1931)
I'll Never Be Young Again (1932)
The Progress of Julius (1933) (later re-published as Julius)
Jamaica Inn (1936)
Rebecca (1938)
Rebecca (1940) (play—du Maurier's own stage adaptation of her novel)
Happy Christmas (1940) (short story)
Come Wind, Come Weather (1940) (short story collection)
Frenchman's Creek (1941)
Hungry Hill (1943)
The Years Between (1945) (play)
The King's General (1946)
September Tide (1948) (play)
The Parasites (1949)
My Cousin Rachel (1951)
The Apple Tree (1952) (short story collection, AKA Kiss Me Again, Stranger)
Mary Anne (1954)
The Scapegoat (1957)
Early Stories (1959) (short story collection, stories written between 1927–1930)
The Breaking Point (1959) (short story collection, AKA The Blue Lenses)
Castle Dor (1961) (with Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch)
The Birds and Other Stories (1963) (republication of The Apple Tree)
The Glass-Blowers (1963)
The Flight of the Falcon (1965)
The House on the Strand (1969)
Not After Midnight (1971) (short story collection, AKA Don't Look Now)
Rule Britannia (1972)
"The Rendezvous and Other Stories" (1980) (short story collection)

Non-fiction
Gerald (1934)
The du Mauriers (1937)
The Young George du Maurier (1951)
The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë (1960)
Vanishing Cornwall (includes photographs by her son Christian)(1967)
Golden Lads (1975)
The Winding Stairs (1976)
Growing Pains -— the Shaping of a Writer (1977) (a.k.a. Myself When Young -— the Shaping of a Writer)
Enchanted Cornwall (1989)

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