Summary of Rebecca
A young woman meets the wealthy widower Maxim de Winter in Monte Carlo. She marries him and moves to his estate, Manderley, on the southwest coast of England, in Cornwall. There, she becomes haunted by the lingering presence of Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, as the housekeeper constantly reminds her of Rebecca’s perfection. Yet as events unfold, she begins to question whether the late Rebecca was truly the woman everyone believed her to be.
Reasons to read Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier was a celebrated English novelist and playwright. “Rebecca” became her most famous work and won the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1938. This classic Gothic novel is often included in reading lists, such as BBC’s list of 100 most inspiring novels of 2019. It has inspired several film adaptions, most famously Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 Oscar-winning film “Rebecca” (Hitchcock also brought du Maurier’s short story “The Birds” to the cinema). Other notable works by Daphne du Maurier include “Jamaica Inn”, “Frenchman’s Creek”, and “My Cousin Rachel”.
Setting: Cornwall (England, UK)
Manderley estate is thought to have been inspired by Menabilly, a country house near Fowey in Cornwall where Daphne du Marier lived, as well as by Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire.Â
Original title: Rebecca
Year of publication: 1938
Nr of pages: 448
