Dame Daphne Du Maurier (Dame Daphne Lady Browning Du Maurier) Biography

British novelist, born in London, educated in Paris, the granddaughter of George du Maurier, and daughter of Gerald du Maurier, the actor. Her first novel, The Loving Spirit (1931), began her successful career as a writer of popular novels and period romances. Many of them were set in Cornwall, including the best-selling Jamaica Inn (1936), a story of wreckers, and Rebecca (1938), her most popular novel. Other novels include Frenchman's Creek (1941), Hungry Hill (1943), The King's General (1946), and My Cousin Rachel (1951). She wrote several biographies including one of her father, Gerald: A Portrait (1934), as well as The du Mauriers (1937), Mary Anne (1954), The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë (1960), and Golden Lads: A Study of Anthony Bacon, Francis and their Friends (1975). Her writing often showed a strong sense of the macabre. Many of her novels were filmed, as were her two short stories, ‘Don't Look Back’ and ‘The Birds’. See also romantic fiction.