Daphne du Maurier Appreciation Post

Hello readers!

So, this week I was planning to post a different piece (which I teased about in last week).

HOWEVER

I changed my mind because I just finished Jamaica Inn and I had to talk about it. Specifically, I wanted to talk about its author: Daphne du Maurier. Prepare for a big statement:

I think Daphne du Maurier is THE QUEEN of atmospheric writing.

So today, I want to talk about her and my thoughts on her two most famous gothic novels: Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Here we go!

Daphne du Maurier was born on May 13, 1907 in London England. She came from a creative family: her father Gerald du Maurier was a famous actor-manager of the day, her mother Muriel Beaumont an actress, and her grandfather George du Maurier was a well known artist and writer.  She and her two sisters lived a privileged life in Hampstead and a holiday home in Cornwall; this holiday home, Ferry side at Bodinnick, was her favorite place to write her early works. From a young age, she loved to tell stories. Her first published work appeared in 1928 with the short story, The Doll, which appeared in the British magazine The Bystander. In 1932, a year after publishing her first novel The Loving Spirit, she married a military man named Frederick Browning and they had three children. A few years later, she wrote Jamaica Inn which showed off her wonderful ability for atmospheric writing and suspense. Her next, and arguably most famous novel, Rebecca propelled her into international fame. The gothic tale of suspense, romance, and memory won the US National Book award and was later made into a Alfred Hitchcock film (he made a few of her stories into film). In total, she wrote 19 novels and 13 short story collections before her death in 1989.

So I have read two of her novels as of 2024: Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Rebecca, which I read a couple of years ago, is a 5 star book, hands down. The story is sublime, writing divine, and characters complex. The ending had me gasp in shock! I am getting ahead of myself. What is the book about? Rebecca is told by our unnamed female narrator, a companion to an older woman, who meets a widower named Max de Winter. They get married and she is whisked off to his large estate called Manderley. But soon she learns Rebecca’s (Max’s previous wife) memory still lingers in the estate. Rebecca was a stunning woman with strengths and a confidence the narrator feels she does not possess. The memory of her casts a dark gloom over the home and the narrator feels stuck in a life filled with gothic suspense and psychological warfare. Here are some examples of the beautiful writing in this book:

The sky, now overcast and sullen, so changed from the early afternoon, and the steady insistent rain could not disturb the soft quietude of the valley; the rain and the rivulet mingled with one another, and the liquid note of the black bird fell upon the damp air in harmony with them both. I brushed the dripping heads of azaleas as I passed, so close they grew together, bordering the path. Little drops of water fell onto my hands from the soaked petals. There were petals at my feet too, brown and sodden, bearing their scent upon them still, and a richer, older scent as well, the smell of deep moss and bitter earth, the stems of bracken, and the twisted buried roots of trees. -Chapter 10 

““The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.”- Chapter 27 

As I mentioned before, I just finished Jamaica Inn, so it is a bit fresher in my mind. I gave this book 4.25/5 stars because the plot ‘twist’ was somewhat predictable and certain buildups did not have great payoffs. The novel follows our young female lead, Mary Yellan, whose mother has just died. On her deathbed, Mary assures her mother she will follow her wishes and go live with Aunt Patience and her Uncle Joss at the Jamaica Inn. But when she arrives on the desolate moors, she finds her uncle to be a sinister uncle and his secrets will scar her forever.

 Though it was not as strong of a novel overall, I actually think the atmospheric writing is better in Jamaica Inn. I found myself rereading passages, just to linger in the words. Here is the first paragraph of the novel:

“It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after two o’clock in the afternoon the pallour of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist. It would be dark by four. The air was clammy cold, and for all the tightly closed windows it penetrated the interior of the coach. The leather seats felt damp to the hands, and there must have been a small crack in the roof, because now and again little drips of rain fell softly through, smudging the leather and leaving a dark blue stain like a splodge of ink. The wind came in gusts, at times shaking the coach as it traveled round the bend of the road, and in the exposed places on the high ground it blew with such force that the whole body of the coach trembled and swayed, rocking between the high wheels like a drunken man” 

I MEAN COME ON! I feel myself in that dark night just rereading my post. While most of the book takes place in the dark and dreary, du Maurier’s talent is not limited to gothic descriptions. Later in the book, Mary and Jem (her uncle’s brother) go to a village at Christmas time. Here is what Mary sees:

“The streets were thronged with people, and the little shops were gay. Carriages, and carts, and coaches too, were huddled together in the cobbled square. There was colour, and life, and movement; the cheerful crowd jostled one another before the market stalls, turkeys and geese scratched at the wooden barrier that penned them, and a woman in a green cloak held apples above her head and smiled, the apples shining and red like her cheeks… Christmas came into its own again in the town and had a place amongst the cobbled streets, the laughing, jostling crowd, and the watery sun struggled from his hiding place behind the grey banked clouds to join the festivity” (167-168).

So no matter what the tone, Daphne du Maurier knows how to draw the reader into her world. I definitely plan to read her other novels and short stories in the future. Have you read any of her works? What do you think of her writing ability? Comment down below!

*A fun fact before I sign off: one of her short story collections includes a tale called The Birds. Sound familiar? Yep, it was this tale that inspired the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name.

Happy Reading!

Lady Bookish

Sources:

https://www.dumaurier.org/menu_page.php?id=118

https://deveresociety.co.uk/portfolio/daphne-du-maurier

https://www.coffeebooksandcake.com/books/daphne-du-maurier-novels-in-order/