Daphne du Maurier, Haunted Heiress

by Nina Auerbach

Auerbach examines the writer of depth and recklessness now largely known only as the author of Rebecca , looking at the way her sharp-edged fiction, with its brutal and often perverse family relationships, has been softened in film adaptations of her work. She reads both du Maurier's life in her writings, and the sensibility of a vanished class and time that haunts the fringes of our own age.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Literary Criticism

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Theresa Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book. A thoroughly academic book on analysis of Du Maurier's characters in her various novels. I bought the book as I'm doing research on Du Maurier and may write a book about her early life, when she wrote the famous novel REBECCA. We shall see...

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of a series of short books by critics about writers or artists who have influenced them - a personal view, in other words, rather than heavy literary criticism. Nina Auerbach writes about her own personal experience of reading Daphne Du Maurier (starting with a torch under the bedclothes at a holiday camp), and picks up recurring themes and aspects of her life and work, in particular the influence of George and Gerald Du Maurier, the supernatural, and male and female identity. There's also a bit about the Hitchcock and other films based on her novels and stories.
I too stumbled upon Daphne Du Maurier as a teenager, but I have only read the books which happened to come my way and they don't seem to be the best known. More reading gaps to fill! This book perhaps is going to send me back in their direction.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nina Auerbach is a renowned feminist literary critic; I have found her work interesting and engaging, so I picked up this book when my interest in Daphne du Maurier's life and psyche was piqued after reading “Rebecca” and “Jamaica Inn.” The book is one of a series by authors who write about their own favorite or pivotal writers, which lends an air of familiarity and ease to the series, and this entry is no exception – Auerbach delightfully tells of her own youthful fascination with du Maurier's work and then proceeds to an insightful, incisive reading of her canon and – especially interesting – the translation and dilution of her work to film. While the book sometimes veers towards the scholarly-jargonistic (who can blame her, this is how she makes her living!), for the most part the book is satisfyingly accessible and the best kind of informative: I feel my intrigue was pretty well resolved, I'd be interested in reading some other du Maurier works discussed in the book, but I'm perfectly happy leaving well enough alone.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is both a critical appreciation of Daphne Du Maurier's writing and a personal account of Nina Auerbach's relationship (as a reader)with Du Maurier. As usual, Auerbach offers fascinating insights into her chosen subject and the personal anecdotes about her own reading are engaging and add interest. Auerbach's Daphne Du Maurier is not my Daphne Du Maurier but she is undoubtedly interesting. Sexual politics, which are key to Auerbach's experience of Du Maurier's work, have never been at the forefront of my own reading of Du Maurier and this book hasn't changed my mind about that. Auerbach is great though at putting Du Maurier into the context of her literary family history and her description of Du Maurier as a chronicler of genealogical and national decay is spot on. The chapter on movie adaptations of Du Maurier's work is also excellent. Best of all, she recognizes and conveys the intrinsic "weirdness" that is the at the heart of Du Maurier's appeal.

[Karin A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Nina took all of Daphne's books and analyzed them to what was going on in Daphne's life when they were written and how she thought about men, women and children, as well as a sprinkle of how Daphne's life panned out. If a character was killed off in a novel, there was something in Daphne's life that she was also putting a "death" to. Enjoyed Nina's insight of my favorite author.

[Carla Remy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might have liked this more if I hadn't read The Daphne Du Maurier Reader first. There was no new information for me here, and I'm not sure how I feel about Auerbach's mix of personal revelations with literary analysis.

[Danica Colnarić · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a quality expose about Daphne du Maurier's work, but somehow too theatrical and too dramatical.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I should have paid more heed to the series of which this book is a part: Personal Takes. It was far more about Nina Auerbach than Daphne Du Maurier. On the positive side, it discussed Du Maurier's lesser known works, which made me curious about reading at least some of them. On the negative side, Auerbach's evaluation of Du Maurier's work projected so much onto Du Maurier in terms of intent and personality that this book should have been subtitled "How I Feel About Du Maurier". And in trashing Du Maurier's more popular works (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman's Creek), as well as any and all (!) film adaptations of her works and anyone who had any hand in those adaptations, this book also trashed anyone who likes those works and adaptations. According to Auerbach, if you like the popular works and/or the adaptations, you're unable to truly understand Du Maurier. This type of elitist, only-ivory-tower-dwellers-need-apply literary criticism ultimately harms the artist it purports to represent.

[Betty Perske · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting biography of the author, focused mostly on a critical examination of her works, with biographical information there as context-- this is not a conventional birth to death biography, in other words. Notably, this was written by an author who has little interest in Rebecca; I don't know if that makes the book more alluring for other people, as it did for me. I liked reading Auerbach's passionate defenses of lesser-known historical novels of great length and boggling at the sheer number of wife murderers that crop up in du Maurier's oeuvre. I have only read Rebecca, although I am gradually convincing myself to read The Progress of Julius, for unclear reasons, So what I took away from the book mostly pertains to Rebecca, namely, the way that du Maurier consciously split herself into two to create the dual Mrs. de Winters: one unnatural wife and one dutiful one. She was both at the same time.

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Auerbach approaches Daphne Du Maurier from two perspectives: her own personal engagement with Du Maurier's themes, and a literary exploration of the themes and underpinnings of Du Maurier's work. You get more out of this book if you have read beyond the usual Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel, because Du Maurier's other books often reveal a pitiless (NOT romantic) look at marriage and love, and the aura of decay / weakness in later family generations, haunted by their stronger, sometimes violent ancestors. What I found most fascinating was Auerbach's examination of the movies made from DuMaurier plots, especially Alfred Hitchcock's.

[A. Macbeth reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

In chapter 6 - - MOVIE STAR - - , the author of DAPHNE DU MAURIER HAUNTED HEIRESS, NINA AUERBACH lets us know exactly how Hollywood film producers axed into du Maurier’s novels and sanitized them for the film-goers’ consumption. The films are only weak versions of the novels with many Hollywoodian adaptations and endings.
Alfred Hitchcock was one such film producer/director who had zero understanding of either du Maurier or her writings. He seemed to have shamelessly contorted , distorted those novels of hers that he fashioned into films.
I now shudder at the thought of being so misled by the film industry about Daphne du Maurier’s novels.

[Ben Lovegrove · Rating 3 out of 5]

I made the mistake of buying this thinking it was a biography, when it is more like literary criticism. I was surprised by the author's claim that at the time of writing (2000) all of du Maurier's books with the exception of Rebecca were out of print.

[JayeL]

September 2014: Available at PLS, SFPL in print
July 2015: not available on audio at Mechanics' Institute