Du Maurier, << doo MAWR ee `ay,` >> Daphne (1907-1989), was an English writer best known for her romantic novels. She was more interested in designing plots full of mystery and suspense than in creating complex characters. Her most popular novel, Rebecca (1938), is about a sensitive young woman disturbed by the memory of her husband’s first wife. Her other novels include Jamaica Inn (1936), Frenchman’s Creek (1941), and My Cousin Rachel (1951). She also wrote an autobiography, Myself When Young (1977), and three plays.
Du Maurier was born in London and received an exclusive private education in England and France. Her three-generation family biography, The Du Mauriers (1937), describes her father, who was actor and theater producer Gerald Du Maurier, and her grandfather, who was artist and novelist George Du Maurier. She lived most of her life on the coast of Cornwall, the romantic setting of many of her works. Queen Elizabeth II made Du Maurier a Dame Commander in the Order of the British Empire in 1969, and she became known as Dame Daphne Du Maurier.
