Rebecca

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Rebecca

Daphne du Maurier

Literature

Aug 1, 2018

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” That’s the famous opening sentence of Rebecca, a suspenseful romantic tale that has cast its irresistible spell over millions of readers since it was published in 1938. The “I” is the novel’s unnamed narrator. She is a timid and inexperienced young woman who, after a whirlwind romance, becomes the wife of the handsome and sophisticated widower Maxim de Winter. Manderley is de Winter’s isolated estate on the Cornish coast of England. When the couple takes up residence there, the new Mrs. de Winter discovers that although her predecessor, the beautiful Rebecca, is dead, her memory lives on. Rebecca unfolds with what one reviewer called “the relentlessness of a vivid nightmare.” As the New York Times put it, “du Maurier is in a class by herself”—and Rebecca is her finest achievement.

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