Bücher von Daphne Du Maurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .Working as a lady's companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. Whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to his brooding estate, Manderley, on the Cornish Coast, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers . . . Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.I am reminded of how profoundly du Maurier changed the way I felt about myself, how she engaged and excited me with her writing.

Originally published: New York: Doubleday, 1931.

Des höfischen Lebens in London überdrüssig, entflieht Lady Dona auf den Landsitz der Familie an den Klippen von Cornwall. Dort begegnet sie dem »Franzosen«, einem verwegenen Freibeuter, und sie gerät in den Strudel einer wildromantischen, verbotenen Liebe. Aus der gelangweilten Ehefrau wird die leidenschaftliche Geliebte des Piraten, aus der zärtlichen Mutter eine wagemutige Abenteurerin. Als Schiffsjunge verkleidet, entschlüpft sie ihrem eintönigen Leben und wagt sich in eine Welt voll Liebe und Gefahr. Bis plötzlich ihr Mann Lord Rockingham auftaucht ...

Düstere Geheimnisse umgeben das berüchtigte Jamaica Inn, das einsam im Moor von Cornwall liegt. Dorthin verschlägt es die junge Waise Mary nach dem Tod ihrer Mutter. Bei ihrer Tante Patience und ihrem Onkel Joss soll sie ein neues Zuhause finden. Doch das Gasthaus nahe der zerklüfteten, sturmgepeitschten Küste beherbergt dunkle Gestalten, die üblen Geschäften nachgehen - und ihr Anführer scheint Marys Onkel zu sein. Mehr und mehr wird Mary in die Machenschaften der Männer verstrickt und gerät in Lebensgefahr. Welches undurchsichtige Spiel treibt dabei Joss' jüngerer Bruder Jem, in den Mary sich verliebt hat?

Philip Ashley travels to Italy to find his cousin Ambrose has died suddenly and Rachel, Ambrose's wife, has gone. Philip returns to England convinced Rachel was responsible for Ambrose's death, hoping to inherit his possessions. When Rachel arrives in England Philip falls in love with her. One small event after another causes a kind of see-saw of belief and disbelief. Is Rachel a scheming murderess or a grossly maligned woman?2 women, 5 men

In a Cornish house lives the widowed Stella, a woman of considerable gifts and beauty who regularly rejects proposals of marriage from her neighbour Robert Hanson. Cherry, Stella's daughter, brings home her artist husband Evan for the first time and Stella is shocked by the bohemian incompleteness of their marriage. She finds herself attracted to Evan and soon they are passionately in love: although much is left unspoken, Evan eventually compels Stella to admit her feelings.-3 women, 3 men

Following the death of their young daughter, John and Laura visit Venice to try and escape their grief. But when the couple meet two aged sisters, one of them claims to have psychic visions of the dead girl.

'How long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew . . . 'A classic of alienation and horror, 'The Birds' was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's sense of dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte Verit ' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .