Where to Start with Daphne du Maurier: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Daphne du Maurier — whether to begin with Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, or Jamaica Inn. A complete reading guide to du Maurier's novels.
Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) is the British novelist who perfected the Gothic romance and made it one of the dominant fictional forms of the twentieth century. Her novels — set almost exclusively in Cornwall, the wild southwestern peninsula of England she loved and made her home — combine atmospheric landscape, psychological dread, obsessive love, and the revelation of secrets with a narrative momentum that keeps readers reading through the night. Alfred Hitchcock adapted Rebecca and The Birds (the latter from her short story); her influence on popular fiction, particularly psychological suspense, is enormous and largely unacknowledged.
Where to Start: Rebecca (1938)
The essential du Maurier — and one of the great English Gothic novels. The narrator (never named) is a young woman of modest background who meets Maxim de Winter, a wealthy widower, in Monte Carlo and marries him with startling speed. At Manderley, his ancestral Cornish estate, she finds herself thoroughly defeated by the memory of Rebecca, Maxim’s first wife — beautiful, accomplished, universally adored — who haunts the house through the zealotry of the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who worshipped her. The nameless narrator is overwhelmed by inadequacy and jealousy of a dead woman.
The novel is a masterpiece of atmosphere and suspense — its Cornwall setting is one of the great landscapes in fiction — and its central revelation, when Maxim finally explains the truth about Rebecca, is perfectly constructed. It is one of the most compulsively readable novels in the language.
My Cousin Rachel (1951)
Du Maurier’s most complex and most disturbing novel — a study in unreliable narration that refuses to give its reader the satisfying resolution of Rebecca. Philip Ashley, a young Cornishman raised by his bachelor cousin Ambrose, inherits the estate after Ambrose dies in Florence, possibly poisoned by his Italian wife Rachel. When Rachel arrives in Cornwall, Philip’s fury becomes infatuation and then reckless love; he gives her access to his fortune and eventually to his estate. Whether Rachel is a scheming poisoner or an innocent woman destroyed by male paranoia is the question du Maurier refuses to answer, and the refusal is the novel’s greatest achievement.
Jamaica Inn (1936)
Du Maurier’s first major success — a Gothic adventure set on the Bodmin Moor in the early nineteenth century. Mary Yellan arrives at Jamaica Inn to live with her aunt Patience and her brutal uncle Joss Merlyn, a landlord who runs a gang of wreckers who lure ships to their destruction on the rocks and murder the survivors. The novel is more straightforwardly atmospheric than Rebecca — its pleasures are those of the Gothic thriller, the desolate landscape, and the mystery of the albino vicar Francis Davey — and it remains one of the great evocations of the Cornish moor.
Frenchman’s Creek (1941)
Du Maurier’s most romantic novel — set in the Restoration period, following Dona St. Columb, a beautiful aristocratic woman fleeing the tedium of London society to her remote Cornish estate, where she discovers that a French pirate has been using the creek on her land as his base. Their love affair — and her decision about whether to sail away with him or return to her life and her children — is du Maurier at her most openly romantic, less Gothic than her other work but equally atmospheric. An excellent novel for readers who love the Cornwall setting and du Maurier’s prose without wanting the psychological darkness of My Cousin Rachel.
The House on the Strand (1969)
Du Maurier’s most original novel — a time-travel story set in the same Cornwall she had written about for forty years, but now reaching back six hundred years. Dick Young, staying at Kilmarth House in Cornwall, is given an experimental drug by his friend Magnus, a biophysicist, that transports him back to fourteenth-century Cornwall while his body remains in the present. The medieval world he visits becomes an obsession; the modern world (his American wife, his friend Magnus’s unexplained death) becomes intrusive and unreal. A profoundly atmospheric novel about the seductive power of the past.
Why Rebecca Is the Ideal First Book
For a reader new to Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca is the ideal first book because it is her most famous and beloved novel and the fullest expression of her distinctive gifts, the atmospheric suspense, the psychological depth, and the masterful, gothic storytelling. Rebecca follows a young woman who marries a wealthy widower and comes to live in his great house, haunted by the memory and presence of his glamorous first wife, in a haunting, suspenseful, and atmospheric gothic novel. As an entry point it is ideal, for it is her most celebrated work and a perfect example of her atmospheric, suspenseful, gothic fiction. It welcomes the newcomer with its haunting atmosphere, its psychological suspense, and its masterful storytelling, drawing the reader into her distinctive vision. It is her most famous work and the one that best represents her gifts, so the new reader encounters du Maurier at her finest. For the newcomer, then, Rebecca is the natural and ideal starting point.
What to Expect as a New Reader
As a new reader, you can expect Rebecca to be a haunting, suspenseful, and atmospheric gothic novel. You can expect a haunting atmosphere, for the novel is suffused with a brooding, gothic mood, centered on the great house and the memory of the first wife, Rebecca. You can expect psychological suspense, for the novel builds tension through the young heroine’s fears, insecurities, and the secrets around her. You can expect masterful storytelling, for du Maurier is a superb storyteller, with a famous opening and a gripping narrative. You can expect a compelling heroine, an unnamed young woman out of her depth. You can expect secrets, twists, and a building sense of dread. You can expect themes of jealousy, identity, memory, and the haunting power of the past. Expect, in short, a haunting, suspenseful, and atmospheric gothic novel, a superb introduction to du Maurier’s gifts.
Going Deeper After Your First Book
Once Rebecca has introduced you to du Maurier’s gifts, the reader who wishes to go deeper can explore her other novels and stories, which continue her atmospheric suspense, her psychological depth, and her masterful, often gothic storytelling. Her other acclaimed works include her atmospheric Cornish novels, her psychological thrillers, and her famous short stories, including the chilling tales that inspired classic films, each marked by her atmosphere, suspense, and storytelling power. Reading these after Rebecca deepens your appreciation of du Maurier’s distinctive gifts, the atmospheric suspense, the psychological depth, and the masterful, gothic storytelling. Her characteristic strengths run through her work, and the reader gripped by Rebecca will find them across her novels and stories. Building your reading journey through du Maurier is a matter of following her fiction from Rebecca into her other novels and short stories. The reader who begins here and continues will find one of the most atmospheric and masterful storytellers of suspense to follow.
Reading Daphne du Maurier
Du Maurier’s Cornwall — the fog, the sea, the granite moor, the crumbling houses — is as much the subject of her fiction as her plots and characters. Begin with Rebecca for the most complete and the most celebrated demonstration of her gifts; read My Cousin Rachel for the most sophisticated psychological complexity; approach Jamaica Inn for atmospheric Gothic adventure; try The House on the Strand when you want her most unusual and intellectually inventive work. All five novels listed here reward reading; all are best read with the Cornish coast somewhere in your imagination.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Daphne du Maurier?
Rebecca (1938) is both the most widely read and the essential starting point — the Gothic novel in which an unnamed young woman marries the wealthy Maxim de Winter and comes to live at Manderley, his vast Cornwall estate, where the shadow of his first wife Rebecca — brilliant, beautiful, and dead — dominates everything. It is du Maurier's masterpiece and one of the most compulsively readable novels in the English language: all atmosphere, dread, and revelation. My Cousin Rachel is the best alternative for readers who want du Maurier's most morally ambiguous psychological novel; Jamaica Inn for her most atmospheric adventure.
What is Rebecca about?
Rebecca (1938) is narrated by a young, socially uncertain woman who marries the brooding widower Maxim de Winter after a whirlwind courtship in Monte Carlo. At Manderley, his magnificent Cornwall estate, she finds herself haunted by the presence of his first wife Rebecca — whose personality still governs the household, personified by the sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. The novel is simultaneously a Gothic romance, a psychological thriller, and a study of obsession, jealousy, and the way a dead woman can possess the living more completely than any living person could. Its opening line — 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again' — is among the most famous in English fiction.
What is My Cousin Rachel about?
My Cousin Rachel (1951) is du Maurier's most morally ambiguous novel — narrated by Philip Ashley, a young Cornishman who inherits his older cousin Ambrose's estate after Ambrose dies in Italy, possibly poisoned by his Italian wife Rachel. When Rachel arrives in England, Philip's initial hatred turns to infatuation and eventually to reckless love — but the question of whether Rachel is innocent or guilty is never resolved. The novel is a masterpiece of unreliable narration: everything we know is filtered through Philip's obsessive, self-deceiving consciousness, and du Maurier refuses to tell us what actually happened.
What is Jamaica Inn about?
Jamaica Inn (1936) is du Maurier's most atmospheric adventure novel — set on the wild, fog-bound Cornish moor in the early nineteenth century. Mary Yellan, arriving at Jamaica Inn to live with her aunt, discovers that her uncle Joss Merlyn runs a gang of wreckers who lure ships onto the rocks and murder their crews. The novel is a straightforward Gothic thriller — less psychologically complex than Rebecca or My Cousin Rachel — but its atmosphere (the desolate moor, the brutal inn, the mysterious albino vicar) is magnificent. An excellent starting point for readers who want du Maurier's storytelling excitement without the psychological density of her later work.
