Author: Daphne du Maurier
Date of Publication: 1938
Genre: Romance, Gothic, Mystery, Classic
Biographical Information about the Author:
Daphne du Maurier was born on May 13, 1907, in London, England, the daughter of actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier. She was a popular novelist known for her suspenseful, romantic and sometimes supernatural plots. Her best known works are Rebecca and The Birds, both adapted to film by Alfred Hitchcock. Du Maurier was made a Dame Commander in the Order of the British Empire in 1969. She died in 1981 in Par, Cornwall, England.
Historical Information about the period of Publication:
Characteristics of the genre:
Romanticism saw a shift from faith in reason to faith in the senses, feelings, and imagination; a shift from interest in urban society to an interest in the rural and natural; a shift from public. Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance.
Plot Summary: Rebecca's narrative takes the form of a flashback. The heroine, who remains nameless, lives in Europe with her husband, Maxim de Winter, traveling from hotel to hotel, harboring memories of a beautiful home called Manderley, which, we learn, has been destroyed by fire. The story begins with her memories of how she and Maxim first met, in Monte Carlo, years before. In her flashback, the heroine is working as the young traveling companion to a wealthy American named Mrs. Van Hopper. In her flashback, Maxim is staying at the same hotel as the heroine and her employer, and after knowing the heroine for only a few weeks, he proposes marriage. She accepts, and he marries her and takes her back to his ancestral estate of Manderley. But a dark cloud hangs over their marriage: Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, drowned in a cove near Manderley the previous year, and her ghost haunts the newlyweds' home. Rebecca's devoted housekeeper, the sinister Mrs. Danvers, is still in charge of Manderley, and she frightens