Thrillers & Suspense
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Rebecca
Now a Netflix film starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, and Kristin Scott Thomas
"Last Night I Dreamt I went to Manderley Again..."
With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten-a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim's first wife-the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.
This special edition of Rebecca includes excerpts from Daphne du Maurier's The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories, an essay on the real Manderley, du Maurier's original epilogue to the book, and more.
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick
"Last Night I Dreamt I went to Manderley Again..."
With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten-a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim's first wife-the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.
This special edition of Rebecca includes excerpts from Daphne du Maurier's The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories, an essay on the real Manderley, du Maurier's original epilogue to the book, and more.
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick
Editorial Reviews
"Du Maurier is in a class by herself." - New York Times
Readers Top Reviews
MichelleSarah Gor
'A lovely woman isn't like a motor tyre, she doesn't wear out. The more you use her, the better she runs'. I went into this book totally blind, I had no idea of the genre or knew anything about it but after a friend absolutely loved it I couldn't wait to jump on the bandwagon, especially with the new adaptation being released. Firstly I can only describe the prose as the language of a traditional afternoon tea. Its is so beautiful, the sentence structure flows and all I wanted to do was eat cucumber sandwiches and scones while staring at a view of rolling fields while reading. Secondly these characters were everything. I really enjoyed Maxim, every now and again his humour arose and it reminded me so much of Lord Henry in Dorien Gray. And Beatrice was an absolute scream, I loved her voice in my head. And our protagonist, nameless from start to finish, now I've finished the book I can only describe her as the coldest character in the warmest way. I did not expect OMG and WOW moments in this book but the turns this book took almost gave me whiplash. I do recommend reading the first two chapters again once you've finished the book as that does give it a sense of closure that felt missing when I read the last page. I will read more from this author, everything was so vivid, the characters all had their own voices and I think this is one closing scene that literally took my breath away. I felt I was there, I could see what they saw and I felt pure traumatic calmness wash over me.
EviEviMichelleSar
One of the best books I’ve had the pleasure of reading this year. This was an absolute joy and I’m so glad I got this copy. So beautiful and classic. Definitely will be reading more books by Du Maurier
NesscaféEviEviMic
Rebecca is my all-time favourite novel. It doesn't get any better than this gothic tale, famously set at Manderley. The suspense du Maurier builds is incredible. I had seen the Hitchcock film and I just loved this so much more, not just because the characters are so much more detailed (obviously) but because the ending is different and SO much better in the book. I felt very differently about both characters at the finish. The whole thing is very Jane Eyre but even more thrillingly dark. It says something that I didn't realise I didn't know the name of the lead character and yet she is spoken to directly by everyone in the book. I've read it and re-read it, seen the play and watched the film. The best thing to do is read it.
Sydney WilliamsNe
Sydney M. Williams “Rebecca,” Daphne Du Maurier November 28, 2020 “I can close my eyes now, and look back on it, and see myself as I must have been, standing on the threshold of the house, a slim awkward figure in my stockinette dress, clutching in my sticky hands a pair of gauntlet gloves.” The narrator thinks back on her arrival at Manderley Rebecca, 1938 Daphne Du Maurier (1907-1989) Rebecca, among the most famous book titles, opens with one of fiction’s most recognized sentences: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Two years after publication, Alfred Hitchcock directed the Academy Award film starring Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. In 2020, Ben Wheatley directed a new version, with Lily James and Arnie Hammer. While Hitchcock does a better job in portraying the dark mood of the story, neither, in my opinion, captures the novel’s full range. Daphne Du Maurier wrote historical novels. She was a master of creating an atmosphere of dark moods and mysterious characters. Born in London, she spent much of her life in Cornwall. Novels like Jamaica Inn, Frenchman’s Creek, The King’s General and My Cousin Rachel were set in England’s west country. Manderley, Max de Winter’s home, is a large estate on the rocky coast of Cornwall; the time is the 1920s. The story is told through a narrator, whose name we are never told, though Max de Winter tells her, “You have a very lovely and unusual name.” When we meet her, she is a paid companion to a wealthy, overbearing American, Mrs. Van Hopper – “…her short body ill-balanced upon tottering high heels, her fussy, frilly blouse a complement to her large bosom and swinging hips…”. They are staying in Monte Carlo in late winter. While the narrator is never described, we are led to understand she is English, about twenty years old, comely not beautiful, innocent not worldly – the antithesis of Rebecca, which is what attracts Mr. de Winter. He is a widower; his wife Rebecca having died the previous May. He is “tall and slim, with dark hair,” wealthy, aristocratic, in his early forties. The dead Rebecca hovers over the novel, like a dark cloud. She obsesses the narrator who has become the new Mrs. De Winter. Rebecca was tall, clever, fond of sport, “a very lovely creature…full of life.” Mrs. Danvers, formerly her childhood nurse, is now housekeeper at Manderley. We first meet her through the eyes of the narrator: “Someone advanced through the sea of faces, someone tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great hollow eyes gave her a skull’s face, parchment-white, set on a skeleton’s frame.” The ghost of Rebecca, a deceitful phantasm, hovers over the large, isolated estate, made real through the devious intrigues of Mrs. Danvers. Neither movie ends as does the book. Movies are a visual, but passive, art ...
Mike&JeannetteSyd
“Rebecca” was a reminder that we have to slow down and really enjoy a book. Most books nowadays get to the just in a few chapters. The literary genius of “Rebecca” is that the level of details satisfies all of the senses. I truly could in-vision Manderley, which ironically was the 4th main character in this story. Well worth it. Daphne Du Maurier does a great job setting the stage and bringing the readers in. Very thought provoking.
Short Excerpt Teaser
RebeccaBy Daphne Du MaurierHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.Copyright ©2006 Daphne Du Maurier
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0380730405
Chapter One
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.
No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkept, not the drive that we had known. At first I was puzzled and did not understand, and it was only when I bent my head to avoid the low swinging branch of a tree that I realised what had happened. Nature had come into her own again and, little by, little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the part, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches interested in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered.
The drive was a ribbon now, a thread of its former self, with gravel surface gone, and choked with grass and moss. The trees had thrown out low branches, making an impediment to progress; the gnarled roots looked like skeleton claws. Scattered here and again amongst this jungle growth I would recognize shrubs that had been land marks in our time, things of culture and of grace, hydrangeas whose blue heads had been famous. No hand had checked their progress, and they had gone native now, rearing to monster height without a bloom, black and ugly as the nameless parasites that grew beside them.
On and on, now east, now west, wound the poor thread that once had been our drive. Sometimes I thought it lost, but it appeared again, beneath a fallen tree perhaps or struggling on the other side of a muddied ditch created by the winter rains. I had not thought the way 80 long. Surely the miles had multiplied, even as the trees had done, and this path led but to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions, and I stood, my heart thumping in my breast, the strange prick of tears behind my eyes.
There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the grey stone shinning in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, not the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand.
The terrace sloped to the lawns, and the lawns stretched to the sea, and turning I could see the sheet of silver, placid under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. No waves would come to ruffle this dream water, and no bulk of cloud, wind-driven from the west, obscure the clarity of this pale sky. I turned again to the house, and though it stood inviolate, untouched, as though we ourselves had left but yesterday, I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself. Ther...
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0380730405
Chapter One
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.
No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkept, not the drive that we had known. At first I was puzzled and did not understand, and it was only when I bent my head to avoid the low swinging branch of a tree that I realised what had happened. Nature had come into her own again and, little by, little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the part, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches interested in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered.
The drive was a ribbon now, a thread of its former self, with gravel surface gone, and choked with grass and moss. The trees had thrown out low branches, making an impediment to progress; the gnarled roots looked like skeleton claws. Scattered here and again amongst this jungle growth I would recognize shrubs that had been land marks in our time, things of culture and of grace, hydrangeas whose blue heads had been famous. No hand had checked their progress, and they had gone native now, rearing to monster height without a bloom, black and ugly as the nameless parasites that grew beside them.
On and on, now east, now west, wound the poor thread that once had been our drive. Sometimes I thought it lost, but it appeared again, beneath a fallen tree perhaps or struggling on the other side of a muddied ditch created by the winter rains. I had not thought the way 80 long. Surely the miles had multiplied, even as the trees had done, and this path led but to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions, and I stood, my heart thumping in my breast, the strange prick of tears behind my eyes.
There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the grey stone shinning in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, not the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand.
The terrace sloped to the lawns, and the lawns stretched to the sea, and turning I could see the sheet of silver, placid under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. No waves would come to ruffle this dream water, and no bulk of cloud, wind-driven from the west, obscure the clarity of this pale sky. I turned again to the house, and though it stood inviolate, untouched, as though we ourselves had left but yesterday, I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself. Ther...
