Rebecca

Meek and malleable but with a compelling narrative voice, Rebecca’s unreliable narrator is a masterly creation, artfully wielded by the author to beguile and disorientate the reader. For this gauche girl, life begins when the handsome and elusive Maxim de Winter rescues her from an odious employer and makes her his wife and mistress of Manderley, his legendary ancestral home. But, plagued by feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, she becomes obsessed with the image of Maxim’s deceased first wife, Rebecca. Embodying everything that her successor lacks, Rebecca is held up as a peerless, charismatic beauty whose allure is only heightened by her tragic demise. In death as in life, Rebecca holds sway over Manderley and all who knew her, from the tormented and malevolent housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, to the failing mother-in-law who cries out her name. Increasingly isolated by her husband’s erratic moods, and the sinister manipulations of Mrs Danvers, the second Mrs de Winter ventures ever deeper into Manderley’s brooding secrets. With its subtle layers of ambiguity and concealment, Rebecca, as Dunmore writes, is a ’mesmerising novel which reveals more on each reading’.

Unbound book block which can be used by bookbinders and collectors to create their own unique bindings. Listed below are details about the components of the block.Sewn: NoEndsheets: NoIllustrations: YesColophon: Yes

Winner of the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is the classic Gothic suspense novel that has haunted and enchanted generations of readers. A young woman working as a lady’s maid in Monte Carlo is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives—presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave. Renowned for its infusion of Gothic macabre into the romantic, Rebecca has also been celebrated as an important piece of feminist literature—a savage critique of gender power dynamics and society’s fear of powerful women. Rebecca, the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her own identity, continues to cast its sinister spell on readers over 85 years later.

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Unbound book block which can be used by bookbinders and collectors to create their own unique bindings. Listed below are details about the components of the block.

A young woman working as a lady’s maid in Monte Carlo is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives—presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave. Originally published in 1938 by Victor Gollancz Ltd., the British publishing house ordered a first print run of 20,000 copies. Within a month, Rebecca had sold more than twice that number. Since its initial publication, Rebecca has never gone out of print, selling 2.8 million copies between the years 1938 and 1965 alone. The novel has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen, including a 1939 play by du Maurier herself, and the 1940 film adaptation directed by Alfred Hitchcock which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Renowned for its infusion of Gothic macabre into the romantic, Rebecca has also been celebrated as an important piece of feminist literature—a savage critique of gender power dynamics and society’s fear of powerful women. Writing for The Guardian, Olivia Laing said of the novel, “What Daphne du Maurier did was build emotional landscapes that can be entered at will, in which difficult and untamable desires were given free rein. Maybe because of her relationship with gender, she was able to make worlds in which people and even houses are mysterious and mutable, not as they seem; haunted rooms in which disembodied spirits sometimes dance at absolute liberty.” Cited by many contemporary novelists, Daphne du Maurier’s masterpiece remains a source of inspiration. Stephen King called the novel, “excellent entertainment… du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings,” while Erin Kelly praised it as “the greatest psychological thriller of all time… I see du Maurier as a forerunner to Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, Gillian Flynn: she is the giant whose magnificent shoulders the rest of us stand upon.” Rebecca, the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her own identity, continues to cast its sinister spell on readers over 85 years later.