false 12873 98 "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Working as a lady's companion, the 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. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, 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. 46663 book 1938 Rebecca total:21754|5:8253|4:8266|3:4096|2:947|1:294| 21754 88477 28364 2575 5 22 false false Thu May 29 18:48:10 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 27 10:14:21 -0800 2008

REBECCA is my favorite book of all time -- bar none.

The opening line is famous, but I didn’t know that the first time I read it (I was about 14). I just remember that the magic began with that first line:


Last night, I dreamt I w...more...]]> 4 13 false false Sun Sep 09 18:32:18 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 09 18:43:32 -0700 2007 Rebecca is the story of a young woman (her first name is never given) who marries wealthy Maxim de Winter, mostly to escape her life as a companion to a rich American woman. She moves with her new husband to his estate, Manderly, where she learns ...more...]]> 2 9 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 03 14:39:17 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 08:34:29 -0700 2008 Rebecca has been floating around in my consciousness for a long time, almost as if I'd already read it, years ago and with only a distant memory of its pages. But, I hadn't ever read it, despite my ability to quote its famous first line or my unexplainable knowledge of its Bronte-esque plot. Would t...more...]]> 4 12 false false Fri Dec 19 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Apr 14 12:32:05 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 19 16:20:55 -0800 2008 Daphne Du Maurier owes to the Brontes for Rebecca, Stephenie Myers owes twice that to Du Maurier for Twilight. I was surprised how many times I thought of Twilight while reading this book. We all know that Myers drew a lot from Wuthering Heights but this is a much more tangled web. Not only...more...]]> 4 6 false false Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 12 14:15:41 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 15 12:34:28 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 7 false true Sat Apr 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Feb 16 00:04:22 -0800 2008 Sat Apr 19 21:57:23 -0700 2008
First things first - the copy that I ordered from Amazon has the look of one of those cheap $6 books you can get at the grocery store. It was only $7.99, and the front cover of the book is picture of red silk with the name, "Rebecca" ...more...]]> 5 5 false false Fri Feb 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jun 16 20:34:09 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 16 20:34:09 -0700 2007
What's so good about it? The beautiful descriptive writing, the nightmarish, dream tinted atmosphere, the complexity of the life at Manderly invol...more...]]> 5 9 false false Mon Jun 18 10:15:35 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 18 10:21:20 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 4 false false Mon Sep 03 16:05:08 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 06 01:52:19 -0800 2007 Willa Cather could cause the land itself to seem a character, Daphne du Maurier's title ...more...]]> 5 2 false true Fri Aug 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 06:23:20 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 08 12:30:57 -0700 2009 1




After a relatively slow start, once this book hit its climax, the suspense of what would happen next continued to build until it reached a wallop of an ending. My understanding is that there is a te...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Wed Apr 09 10:32:14 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 10:43:10 -0700 2008
This is how "Rebecca" opens and it is, quite possibly, one of the best opening lines in a book ever.

"Rebecca" is the story of a woman who marries Mr. de Winter and when she goes to his home, she is ...more...]]> 4 2 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 27 14:50:23 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 04 00:03:12 -0800 2008 Rebecca, and I imagined tha...more...]]> 4 2 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 06 07:23:16 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 23 10:20:42 -0700 2007
Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be reviewing the book here? Right.

I have to say the relationship between the narrator and Maxim ...more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue Jun 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 16 11:04:50 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 19:39:22 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 2 false false Sun Mar 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 28 06:36:31 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 13:33:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 3 false false Fri Jun 13 09:59:44 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 23 11:46:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Mar 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Feb 24 06:55:23 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 17 08:32:26 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1996 Wed Jan 14 11:03:48 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 11:28:34 -0800 2009 6+ more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Jan 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 18 21:42:56 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 28 13:13:48 -0800 2009
Considered one of the most famous lines in literature, I confess I had never heard of it before. While I understand the emotion contained in the line, I think a more accurate first line would have been, "Last night, I dreamt...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Sep 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 16:52:03 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 12 23:16:01 -0700 2008 1 more...]]>