Daphne du Maurier was an English novelist and playwright, born in London in 1907 into a distinguished artistic family; her father was the actor-manager Gerald du Maurier and her grandfather the writer and cartoonist George du Maurier. She grew up surrounded by theatre and literature, and developed an early love of the wild Cornish coast that would become the setting for much of her fiction.
Du Maurier achieved lasting fame with Rebecca, published in 1938, a gothic novel of romance, jealousy, and menace narrated by an unnamed young woman haunted by the memory of her husband's first wife. Its famous opening line and its brooding atmosphere have made it one of the most beloved novels of the twentieth century, and it has never been out of print.
Several of her works were adapted by Alfred Hitchcock, including Rebecca, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the novel Jamaica Inn, and the short story The Birds. Her fiction frequently combines suspense, psychological complexity, and a strong sense of place, blurring the lines between romance and the gothic.
Though sometimes dismissed in her lifetime as a popular romantic novelist, du Maurier has been increasingly recognized for the darkness and psychological depth of her work. She was made a Dame of the British Empire and lived much of her life in Cornwall, where she died in 1989.
