skip to main content

Reader's Paradise

friedag question

18 years ago

I noticed you mentioned Daphne du Maurier as one of your all time favorite authors. I have just recently discovered her - read Rebecca and The House on the Strand. Liked them both and was wondering if you would list some of your favorites that she authored. I'm wanting to read more but she was a pretty prolific writer so would love some input. Thanks.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (10)

friedag
18 years ago
wigardener, the following is the way I have consistently ranked DduM's novels for almost forty years, from first reads to many rereads:

The Top Tier
1. The House on the Strand
2. The King's General
3. Rebecca
4. My Cousin Rachel
5. Jamaica Inn
6. The Scapegoat

The Second Tier - the second and third tiers move around a bit in my estimation so I will alphabetize rather than number them

Castle d'Or - DduM finished this after Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's death
The Flight of the Falcon
Frenchman's Creek
The Glass-Blowers - historical based on her own French ancestors
Mary Anne - historical based on her own great?-grandmother

The Third Tier
Hungry Hill
I'll Never Be Young Again
The Progress of Julius (aka Julius)

The Dregs - awful, in my opinion, but they do have their defenders
The Parasites
Rule Britannia

If you are interested in her short stories and nonfiction, I have opinions of those, too; but I don't want to overwhelm you!
jlsch
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks so much. I had picked up My Cousin Rachel and it is next in my line to be read, so I'm glad I guessed right in picking that one! I'll be looking for the others as well as I really did get hooked on her after reading Rachel. Thanks again.
Related Discussions
Acquired Taste
Q
Comments (64)
Vee, those books given as school prizes are mentioned frequently by many of the British memoirists I've been reading lately. The recipients seem to have been very proud of them. One of the East End writers related how she brought home her school prize of David Copperfield where it was enshrined on the mantel next to The Bible, the only other book the family had. Dickens seems to have been the favorite author for prize-giving. If books were ever awards to American schoolchildren, they don't seem to have been recalled as often in memoirs or diaries. It's a curious lacuna, if indeed that's what it is. I'm struck by how difficult were some of the books read by the English working class. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus is often cited as a great influence and much loved book. Really! I have no reason to doubt those claims, but I didn't try reading Sartor... until university, and about all I recall is it gave me the devil; appropriately, I suppose, when the main character is named Diogenes Teufelsdrockh -- that I do remember! What people read and enjoyed a hundred years ago can make me feel inadequate. Do you reckon they could do it because they had fewer distractions? Some of those working-class folk could show up the aristos. I remember what the Mitford girls (Nancy and Jessica) wrote about their father: He had a huge library that he inherited, though he claimed he had never read a single volume in it. But he was smug because of who he was. What a philistine! In The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class mothers are often cited as the more influential parent, perhaps because fathers worked too much to have anything but intermittent interaction with their offspring. I think that was pretty much true in the U.S., too, at least up until the 1960s, maybe 1970s. My father was interested in what we kids read, watched, and listened to, but he left it to our mother to be 'in charge'. However, I had some friends whose father dictated just about everything, and I always felt sorry for them, especially when their mother would've allowed stuff but she didn't dare go against HIM and his wishes! Vee, is it just you and I? RP sure seems dead lately. Has there been a log-in problem?
...See More
Stereotypes
Q
Comments (68)
Like Liz, I have found most American humour (humor??) to be either a bit too physical for my taste, or not enough of a surprise. I love the British dry humour, and my favourite comedy shows are those that rely on word jokes and puns, like Yes Minister and Blackadder. I have always been a bit surprised that Seinfeld was such a hit in the US as it is much more subtle in a lot of its humour than most American shows IMHO, although a lot of Jewish humour is word based, so maybe it's that. Also IMO, the best of Monty Python is hilarious, but if you watch the original series, there are quite a lot of 'misses'. Again, many of my favourite sketches are those I first heard on record (yes, one of those old black vinyl things) so are entirely reliant on the words to be funny. Some of the best are Cheese Shop (Wensleydale? Oh, that's my name!), the Parrot Sketch (he's pining for the fjords), Novel Writing with my unbeloved Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde and Whistler. Their films MP and the Holy Grail and The Life of Brian were also spot on for me. When my children were eventually old enough to watch these, they spent the first viewing saying 'THAT'S where you got that from' over and over *VBG* Many of their songs were terrific too, my favourites there being the Accountancy Shanty, the Philosophers' Song and of course, 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'.
...See More
Pesky OT Question
Q
Comments (101)
Lydia, please don't think your post about your sisters and the instinct of many American women to cocoon was a damp squib. I read with great interest, smiling and nodding my head in agreement. Although I should have acknowledged it, I didn't think I had anything pertinent to add; thus I completely forgot to say anything! I figure it's the same with most readers -- and I'm sure that there are a lot more lurkers than contributors! It's a natural progression of most threads, I think, to go hot and heavy for a while (usually only when they're new). But when the novelty wears off, they dwindle until they just stop. It's not the last poster's fault! Sometimes threads are dormant for a spell, only to wake up and have another short burst or two of activity. Most likely, though, the same topics will be recycled in different threads. So, Lydia, just stick around and you can read multiple retellings of my stories -- unfortunately I only have so many in my repertoire. As for why I spell it chile: force of habit, probably. I have lived in and have strong associations with the American southwest where that is the preferred spelling for certain Capsicum. Being as they are native to Mexico and Central America, the Spanish form seems appropriate. It also distinguishes the peppers themselves from the meat stew, chili con carne, that is usually shortened now to just 'chili'. Herr Gebhardt who first peddled his concoction of the typical Mexican and mestizo spice combinations in San Antonio, Texas was likely a bit fuzzy about the distinction between 'chile' and 'chili' -- so it's chili powder for chili. Anyway, the usual rendering of the Nahuatl word for the same Capsicum is 'chilli'. So take your pick as to how you want to spell it, but be warned that Mexicans and American southwesterners observe the distinctions! :-)
...See More
Most Memorable "Supporting" Characters
Q
Comments (59)
Here are a few more characters I think apply to the main question: Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher J. Koch and in the subsequent film starring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, and Linda Hunt. I read the book first and in it there is no doubt that Billy is male. Actually, there's none in the film, either, except the role of Billy is played by a woman. When I first saw the film, I didn't know that the actor is female, so I wasn't wowed by the fact that she played Billy so convincingly. Some watchers, however, can't seem to get past that fact. At any rate, without Billy Kwan, a heterosexual male dwarf, the story wouldn't be much beyond the typical love affair during difficult times. (That descriptive of a particular type of a small-sized person is not PC, I know, but good grief, things do have to be taken in context of the times depicted.) Flora in The Piano by Jane Campion and Kate Pullinger and in the film starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin. The book actually came after the film, in one of the rare instances when a novelization of a screenplay is quite well written, probably because Jane Campion, the screenwriter and director, had her hand in the novel as well. As memorable as Flora is in the film as the daughter of the main character, Ada, I was pleasantly surprised that her actions were translated to the book in depth. Sally Bowles in Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and in a couple of films: "I Am a Camera" (Julie Harris in the role of Sally) and in "Cabaret" (with Liza Minnelli as Sally) Sally Bowles was English in Isherwood's stories and in "I Am a Camera" (although Julie Harris, the actress, was from the U.S.), but she's American in "Cabaret." I read somewhere that Minnelli was so perfect for the part, but she couldn't sustain an English accent so it was logical to change Sally's nationality. I agree in this instance. What about Harry Lime in The Third Man, a novelization by Graham Greene of his own screenplay for the film of the same title starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, and Alida Valli? Apparently, Greene wanted the character of Holly Martins to be English instead of American. But he always wanted the villain to be American. Greene did not have a very high opinion of Americans. Instead, Martins as played by Joseph Cotten is a Yank. But which is the main character, Harry Lime or Holly Martins, in spite of the billing order of the starring actors? The English characters, all of whom could be said to be secondary, are some of the best ever, I think: Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), and Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White). What do you all think of those characters? Good choices or not? I'm trying to think of very well known books and films that many people have probably read or seen, although it is likely more have seen the films.
...See More
woodnymph2_gw
18 years ago
Didn't she also write an autobiographical work which was rather a love letter to Cornwall? I can't recall the exact title at the moment....
friedag
18 years ago
wigardener, you're welcome. I hope you enjoy My Cousin Rachel. It's a most enigmatic story, and I know many readers who rank it higher than I do.

Ach, I forgot to include above The Loving Spirit, DduM's first novel. I would put it in the second tier.

Mary, do you mean Vanishing Cornwall, the pictorial essay that she did with her son, Christopher Browning?
woodnymph2_gw
18 years ago
Frieda, yes, that's the one, and I really enjoyed it. I'd love to tour Cornwall and traverse the landscape DuM. knew, sail where she did, see the houses, e.g. "Menabilly", etc.

FWIW, I rank "My Cousin Rachel" right up there with "Rebecca." Following close behind, IMO, are her short stories, e.g. "Don't Look Now", "The Birds", and others.
deborah47
18 years ago
please bear with me until I get these abbreviations- FWIW?

DuM is one author I have never read but it sounds like an author I need to look into.
friedag
18 years ago
Deborah, FWIW = for what it's worth. Mary (woodnymph) is being modest, as her opinions are worth as much or more than mine.

Many readers are introduced to Daphne du Maurier through her most famous novel, Rebecca. That can be good...or bad, I'm afraid. I say bad because then they have a desire to read more of DduM that's "like Rebecca." Some think that because Rebecca has tones of the Gothic -- the nearest equivalent is Jane Eyre -- they assume that all of DduM's books are Gothic and want to pigeonhole her in that genre. So it's a toss up between those who want more of the same and those who think her books are all the same. They aren't, and that seems to be the rub.

Actually, DduM was a versatile writer in styles as far afield from each other as historical romance to straight historicals to science fiction (time travel) to the macabre, and even satire (which I'm afraid was not her strong suit) -- and that's only her fiction. It's a bit ironic that my favorite of her stories is often categorized in a genre that I usually have no affinity for, but maybe that also tells a little bit about her scope.
deborah47
18 years ago
thanks for the information
rosefolly
18 years ago
And just to throw a different voice in the mix, Frenchman's Creek is my personal favorite of her novels. I have read and enjoyed several others, though not all. Perhaps it is time to read some I have missed.

Rosefolly
veer
18 years ago
I read today in the Sunday Telegraph that yet another novel about D du M is to be published next week called Daphne by Justine Picardie. Set in the '50's while she is dealing with marital problems and trying to research the life of Branwell Bronte.
I suppose it could be described as a 'what might have happened next' work.

Here is a link that might be useful: An extract from 'Daphne'

0

Sponsored

More Discussions

April and the never-ending game

82

April Come She Will - and we keep reading

63

The first sentence of the book you're reading.........

17

The Game Flowers in May

101

June is in bloom ( at least in these parts! )....what are you reading

93