The unnamed narrator, a timid young woman working as a paid companion to a vulgar American in Monte Carlo, meets Maxim de Winter, a wealthy, brooding English widower. After a whirlwind courtship he marries her and brings her home to Manderley, his celebrated estate on the Cornish coast, where she feels gauche and out of place from the moment she arrives.
Everywhere she turns she finds traces of Maxim's first wife Rebecca, who drowned in a sailing accident a year earlier and was, by every account, beautiful, accomplished and adored. The sinister housekeeper Mrs Danvers, devoted to Rebecca's memory, makes the new Mrs de Winter feel like an intruder, and the narrator becomes consumed by comparison and jealousy as secrets begin to surface.
Du Maurier opens with one of the most famous first lines in English fiction and sustains an atmosphere of mounting dread. The novel blends romance, psychological suspense and gothic mystery, and explores class, identity and the power of the dead over the living. Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 film won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Book details
| Author | Daphne du Maurier |
|---|---|
| First published | 1938 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Classic |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 410 |
| Setting | Monte Carlo and the Manderley estate in Cornwall, England, 1930s |
| Awards | National Book Award for Favorite Novel 1938 |
Themes
- Jealousy
- Identity
- Class
- Obsession
- The past haunting the present
Who should read it
Readers who love atmospheric gothic suspense and psychological tension.