At a Glance
A shy, unnamed young woman marries the brooding widower Maxim de Winter and moves into Manderley, his vast English estate. There she is haunted by the memory of Rebecca, Maxim's first wife — kept alive by the fanatically devoted housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. As the narrator struggles to find her place, she gradually uncovers the truth: Rebecca was not the perfect woman everyone believed, and Maxim did not love her. He killed her. The narrator must decide whether to protect him — and whether love built on a dark secret can survive.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Rebecca was the bestselling novel in Britain in 1938 and the United States in 1939. It has never gone out of print. Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 film adaptation won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The novel essentially invented the modern 'psychological Gothic romance' genre — the template that runs from Victoria Holt through Phyllis Whitney to contemporary domestic suspense. Du Maurier filed a plagiarism lawsuit over a Brazilian novel, O Sucessor, with suspicious similarities, and won. The name 'Rebecca' became culturally associated with a particular kind of dangerous, captivating femininity.
Diction Profile
Formal and interior — elevated descriptive prose alternating with anxious, self-interrupting first-person narration
High, with particular concentration in landscape description. Du Maurier's landscapes are always psychological