A gripping psychological novel with a detective plot
"I could wrestle a living woman, but a dead one is beyond my strength."
When the nameless narrator meets her widowed compatriot Maxim de Winter in Monte Carlo, word gets out and soon a hand is up her sleeve. The wealthy English nobleman may be twice her age, but so what if they can live together in the groom's Manderlay, a fabulously splendid mansion on the coast of Cornwall!
But a snake crawls into paradise. The reserved Maxim seems to continue to live in the shadow of his first daughter-in-law Rebecca, who tragically died while sailing in the bay, and the sultry atmosphere on the estate is fuelled by the behaviour of the servants, especially the hostile housekeeper. The devastated newlywed finds that the original Milady de Winter seems to wield immeasurable power over everyone, even from the grave, especially when it becomes clear that her death on the yacht may not have been an unfortunate accident.
A spellbinding psychological novel with a detective plot presents the classic theme of British adherence to social masquerade, where cruelty is heightened by neuroses hidden under a mask of smiles. And so the hastily married couple of deeply lonely people are facing a crossroads of love, a chilling awakening and a trial by fire.
The famous prose from 1938 was adapted into a number of films and theatre, most notably two years later by director Alfred Hitchcock with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. The film won two Academy Awards. The opera (1983) was composed by Wilfred Josephs. The latest film version from director Ben Wheatley (2020) is available on Netflix under the title Rebecca, starring Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas.
"A wonderfully bleak love story. An unrivalled performance." - The Independent
"Great body deception. The other Milady de Winter is not a dazzling creature either, and yet she is one of the most brilliant figures in English fiction today." - The Guardian
