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Letters from Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship
Daphne du Maurier’s correspondence with Oriel Malet began in the early 1950s, after they met at a cocktail party in London. At least twenty years separated them: Oriel was a gauche young writer while Daphne was the famous, much-feted author of bestselling novels including Jamaica Inn, My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca.
The friendship flourished for thirty years, fed by the letters that arrived faithfully from Menabilly, the du Maurier house in Cornwall. While Oriel tasted life on a houseboat on the Seine and mixed with the artistic Who’s Who of Paris, Daphne’s letters tell of her family, past and present, her marriage to General Sir Frederick Browning—a war hero known privately as “Moper,” whose fits of melancholy caused many a crisis at Menabilly—and events like Prince Philip coming for dinner: “We’ve got only four knives with handles, and one silver candlestick must be glued!” Most of all, though, her letters are a valuable record of the complex and rigorous art of a fine and well-loved writer: the “brewing” of a plot, the research, and the “pegging” of secret fantasies onto a living person in order to create classic characters such as Cousin Rachel and Roger Klymerth.
303 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1993
6 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
About the author
Daphne du Maurier
418 books10.2k followersDaphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 24, 2022
I found some of the letters more interesting than others: those where du Maurier wrote to her friend about work on one or other of her books, and what was clearly a disappointment in not being taken seriously as a writer because her books were so popular.
That snobbery that says if a lot of people enjoy a book means that it cannot be considered literary seems ridiculous to me. This comment about The Scapegoat made me smile:
So it is certainly going to be off to a good start in America, but I am sure to have sniffs and jeers in this country, especially if old Victor [Gollancz, her publisher] does those irritating adverts about it selling a lot before it is even published, which I am sure makes critics despise me more than ever. I am sure if he said, ‘This book has sold no copies, and nobody who has looked at it can understand a word,’ the critics would be nice, for once!
This is not a book to read through from beginning to end without interruption, any more than one reads letters from a friend one after the other. I enjoyed reading just a few letters at a time. I also enjoyed the sections in which Oriel Malet, to whom the letters were addressed, expanded on some of the people or events to which du Maurier referred.
Probably of interest only to people who have read and enjoyed du Maurier's many books.
That snobbery that says if a lot of people enjoy a book means that it cannot be considered literary seems ridiculous to me. This comment about The Scapegoat made me smile:
So it is certainly going to be off to a good start in America, but I am sure to have sniffs and jeers in this country, especially if old Victor [Gollancz, her publisher] does those irritating adverts about it selling a lot before it is even published, which I am sure makes critics despise me more than ever. I am sure if he said, ‘This book has sold no copies, and nobody who has looked at it can understand a word,’ the critics would be nice, for once!
This is not a book to read through from beginning to end without interruption, any more than one reads letters from a friend one after the other. I enjoyed reading just a few letters at a time. I also enjoyed the sections in which Oriel Malet, to whom the letters were addressed, expanded on some of the people or events to which du Maurier referred.
Probably of interest only to people who have read and enjoyed du Maurier's many books.
May 28, 2016
Letters from Daphne du Maurier to her young friend and fellow writer, Oriel Malet, from the 1950s to 1980s, interspersed with paragraphs about Oriel Malet's own life (lived mostly in France) which I often found more interesting than du Maurier's letters. There's a lot of "family slang" which can come across as a little affected, but the glossary at the front explains the various terms like "menaced" for "sexually attracted" - one of my favourites.
April 30, 2023
Letters from Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship, which charts the correspondence sent by Daphne du Maurier to fellow author Oriel Malet, has been on my to-read list since I first read du Maurier’s beautiful novel, Rebecca, many years ago. Having now read all of du Maurier’s fiction, and much of her non-fiction, too, I am slowly working my way through her correspondence. I always find it a real privilege when I am able to read the private correspondence of someone whom I very much admire, and it adds a new dimension to my understanding, both of the individual, and their fiction.
Many of the letters collected here were sent from du Maurier’s beloved Cornwall home, Menabilly. ‘Certain places and houses,’ Malet tells us in the book’s prologue, ‘have strong personalities of their own, regardless of their inmates; perhaps they deliberately cast a spell over those whom they know will love and cherish them. Menabilly was one of those houses, in which layers of time seemed to have worn thin in places, so that the past now and then showed through. There were rooms in which a lot seemed to have been going on before you entered them, and would probably do so again once you, the intruder, had left.’
Malet edited this collection for publication in 1993, following du Maurier’s death in 1989. The pair began to correspond in the early 1950s, after meeting at a London party that neither really wanted to attend: ‘My companion seemed to have little taste for cocktail-part chat, and we plunged almost at once into congenial subjects… Nothing she said gave me any clue to her identity, nor did I bother to ask. She struck me as one of the easiest people to talk to, and one of the most amusing.’ At this point, ‘at least twenty years separated them: Oriel was a gauche young writer while Daphne was the famous, much-fêted author of bestselling novels.’ Their friendship ‘flourished for thirty years’.
In her Foreword, which charts their relationship, Malet writes: ‘There are friendships which, with time, become so woven into the texture of our lives that when such friends depart, a hole is torn which can scarcely be mended, only patched… I should have been in awe of her, but owing to her inborn shyness and humility, I never felt the slightest need to be; nor would she have encouraged any such attitude.’ Despite du Maurier’s love of privacy, Malet decided to share these letters with the public, arguing: ‘I believe that they may be of interest to others, to all who love the world of the imagination which Daphne du Maurier created, and would like to know her better.’
Letters from Menabilly has been split into three sections, with a prologue prefacing ‘Letters from Menabilly’ and ‘The Sad Years: 1979–April 1989’. The book also opens with a helpful glossary, featuring a list of nicknames for the many individuals discussed throughout. I very much enjoyed the addition of the prologue, and felt a good deal of amusement whilst reading it. It is also a very touching piece of writing, which really helps to set the scene. Similarly, context and commentary are offered before each letter, to give extra details.
I really enjoyed seeing du Maurier’s perspective on a whole range of issues, particularly during periods of great social change. In June 1955, for instance, she writes: ‘… I should say that much of the many, many divorces today comes about because the woman no longer demands only green pastures, but her independence, and possibly career too. This thing of career and independence has increased so enormously during the last fifty years, that it amounts to a great revolution! It’s as though the fundamental outlook of women has been jolted upside down.’ In letters such as this one, du Maurier quite charmingly signs herself ‘Professor Daphstein’. Indeed, throughout her letters, she writes most intelligently about an enormous breadth of topics: psychology, Greek mythology, having ‘Deep Thoughts’, nature, reflections on her relationships with others, genealogy, and her writing process, to name just a handful.
As I expected, a lot of humour suffuses these letters. In August 1955, du Maurier’s daughter, Flavia, brings her partner with her to Menabilly: ‘… I believe they have footmen and silver trays, so he will probably go back to his nanny mother, and say Menabilly is a dump. I was in my shorts, too, which may have shocked him.’ Every single one of du Maurier’s letters is full-bodied, honest, and revealing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining reading experience.
Letters from Menabilly felt like a real treat to me, and hearing from ‘Bing’ was a real source of comfort. The volume is filled with such warmth from both authors, and was a delight to settle down with. I particularly enjoyed the final part of Malet’s acknowledgements, which reads: ‘Also, to my cat Melusine, for consistently acting (unasked) as a paperweight.’ It has really highlighted to me that I need to get my hands on some of Malet’s writing, and fast. I think she is an author whose work I will very much enjoy. Whilst I find one-sided volumes of correspondence fascinating, I quite wish that Malet’s replies to du Maurier had been included in this volume, too.
Many of the letters collected here were sent from du Maurier’s beloved Cornwall home, Menabilly. ‘Certain places and houses,’ Malet tells us in the book’s prologue, ‘have strong personalities of their own, regardless of their inmates; perhaps they deliberately cast a spell over those whom they know will love and cherish them. Menabilly was one of those houses, in which layers of time seemed to have worn thin in places, so that the past now and then showed through. There were rooms in which a lot seemed to have been going on before you entered them, and would probably do so again once you, the intruder, had left.’
Malet edited this collection for publication in 1993, following du Maurier’s death in 1989. The pair began to correspond in the early 1950s, after meeting at a London party that neither really wanted to attend: ‘My companion seemed to have little taste for cocktail-part chat, and we plunged almost at once into congenial subjects… Nothing she said gave me any clue to her identity, nor did I bother to ask. She struck me as one of the easiest people to talk to, and one of the most amusing.’ At this point, ‘at least twenty years separated them: Oriel was a gauche young writer while Daphne was the famous, much-fêted author of bestselling novels.’ Their friendship ‘flourished for thirty years’.
In her Foreword, which charts their relationship, Malet writes: ‘There are friendships which, with time, become so woven into the texture of our lives that when such friends depart, a hole is torn which can scarcely be mended, only patched… I should have been in awe of her, but owing to her inborn shyness and humility, I never felt the slightest need to be; nor would she have encouraged any such attitude.’ Despite du Maurier’s love of privacy, Malet decided to share these letters with the public, arguing: ‘I believe that they may be of interest to others, to all who love the world of the imagination which Daphne du Maurier created, and would like to know her better.’
Letters from Menabilly has been split into three sections, with a prologue prefacing ‘Letters from Menabilly’ and ‘The Sad Years: 1979–April 1989’. The book also opens with a helpful glossary, featuring a list of nicknames for the many individuals discussed throughout. I very much enjoyed the addition of the prologue, and felt a good deal of amusement whilst reading it. It is also a very touching piece of writing, which really helps to set the scene. Similarly, context and commentary are offered before each letter, to give extra details.
I really enjoyed seeing du Maurier’s perspective on a whole range of issues, particularly during periods of great social change. In June 1955, for instance, she writes: ‘… I should say that much of the many, many divorces today comes about because the woman no longer demands only green pastures, but her independence, and possibly career too. This thing of career and independence has increased so enormously during the last fifty years, that it amounts to a great revolution! It’s as though the fundamental outlook of women has been jolted upside down.’ In letters such as this one, du Maurier quite charmingly signs herself ‘Professor Daphstein’. Indeed, throughout her letters, she writes most intelligently about an enormous breadth of topics: psychology, Greek mythology, having ‘Deep Thoughts’, nature, reflections on her relationships with others, genealogy, and her writing process, to name just a handful.
As I expected, a lot of humour suffuses these letters. In August 1955, du Maurier’s daughter, Flavia, brings her partner with her to Menabilly: ‘… I believe they have footmen and silver trays, so he will probably go back to his nanny mother, and say Menabilly is a dump. I was in my shorts, too, which may have shocked him.’ Every single one of du Maurier’s letters is full-bodied, honest, and revealing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining reading experience.
Letters from Menabilly felt like a real treat to me, and hearing from ‘Bing’ was a real source of comfort. The volume is filled with such warmth from both authors, and was a delight to settle down with. I particularly enjoyed the final part of Malet’s acknowledgements, which reads: ‘Also, to my cat Melusine, for consistently acting (unasked) as a paperweight.’ It has really highlighted to me that I need to get my hands on some of Malet’s writing, and fast. I think she is an author whose work I will very much enjoy. Whilst I find one-sided volumes of correspondence fascinating, I quite wish that Malet’s replies to du Maurier had been included in this volume, too.
September 13, 2016
Malet was in some ways du Maurier’s opposite: a fellow writer, she was critically lauded but never sold well; where du Maurier was such a homebody she even resisted trips to London to do research, Malet moved to Paris to live out the dream of being a true artist. They first met at a publishing party in the early 1950s, when du Maurier was in her 40s and Malet in her 20s. Du Maurier took the younger author under her wing, inviting her to stay at Menabilly when she became unwell and needed to get out of London.
The book opens with a glossary of Daphne du Maurier “codewords” and the letters are indeed riddled with them, from “Tell-Him” for a long boring story, to “Silly Values” for anything selfish, superficial or materialistic, and most notably “Peg” for a person in real life who inspires a fictional character. Malet provides a fairly lengthy introduction to their friendship, including a detailed description of her first visit to Menabilly, but that isn’t her only interjection.
Between every few letters (all from Daphne to Oriel, not the other way round) Malet writes a little background to both their lives at that time. Some of this is necessary information to understanding the letters, some is interesting background to the life of a writer, some seemed entirely superfluous, or at least far lengthier than was necessary to understand du Maurier and the letters.
But for the most part this is a fascinating insight into both women’s lives – into their homes, their craft, their intellectual interests and of course their developing friendship. As with any real set of letters, there’s quite a lot of discussion of friends and family. Some of this is dull, but it’s also an important part of who both women are. Du Maurier’s problems in her marriage are heavily coded and yet her sorrow and strain seep through, even as she is insisting that she doesn’t get melancholic.
Read my full review: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2016/09/...
The book opens with a glossary of Daphne du Maurier “codewords” and the letters are indeed riddled with them, from “Tell-Him” for a long boring story, to “Silly Values” for anything selfish, superficial or materialistic, and most notably “Peg” for a person in real life who inspires a fictional character. Malet provides a fairly lengthy introduction to their friendship, including a detailed description of her first visit to Menabilly, but that isn’t her only interjection.
Between every few letters (all from Daphne to Oriel, not the other way round) Malet writes a little background to both their lives at that time. Some of this is necessary information to understanding the letters, some is interesting background to the life of a writer, some seemed entirely superfluous, or at least far lengthier than was necessary to understand du Maurier and the letters.
But for the most part this is a fascinating insight into both women’s lives – into their homes, their craft, their intellectual interests and of course their developing friendship. As with any real set of letters, there’s quite a lot of discussion of friends and family. Some of this is dull, but it’s also an important part of who both women are. Du Maurier’s problems in her marriage are heavily coded and yet her sorrow and strain seep through, even as she is insisting that she doesn’t get melancholic.
Read my full review: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2016/09/...
July 23, 2020
Being a fan of Daphne du Maurier, I wanted to read her letters to her friend. I enjoyed the letters that talked of her books the best. I found it interesting and strange the different names she calls herself, but the creativity of Daphne might have taken that in account for imagination of an author. I enjoyed reading these but sometimes I lost interest in some parts but the "sad years" made me feel for her struggles as she grew older and her memory failed her. Daphne will always be young and live on when new readers of the future escape to her worlds of imagination.
July 26, 2020
I have one book by Oriel Malet on order from the library and I wish more were readily available. New favorite!
Also, Daphne's letters were pretty awesome.
Also, Daphne's letters were pretty awesome.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews