THE FOLIO SOCIETY

‘I thought "she is comparing me to Rebecca" and sharp as a sword the shadow came between us’

As a young woman, du Maurier discovered Menabilly, stately home of the Rashleigh family just outside Fowey in Cornwall. Although empty and neglected at the time, du Maurier fell in love with the house. It was the inspiration for the brooding but beautiful Manderley, the setting of her most famous novel. When Maxim de Winter asks a young, gauche girl to marry him it seems to her like a fairytale. But when they return to Manderley, she senses traces everywhere of his first wife, Rebecca, who died in a sailing accident. The sinister housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, venerates her memory and the house itself seems infused with the dead woman’s spirit. Suspicion and jealousy breed fast as the truth behind Rebecca’s death comes to light.