We hope the example of Daphne's family will encourage you to post on this webpage your favourite lines other than the universally well-loved opening to Rebecca. Perhaps you'll be inspired to re-read her books and discover other lines with a special meaning for you.

Virago Press has published almost thirty of Daphne's books in paperback with a delightful hardback edition of Vanishing Cornwall. These have introductions by established authors, some of whom have presented at our Festival and submitted their own favourite lines below.

If you have already REGISTERED as a Member, please use the SUBMIT form to send your favourite lines to us, where they will be reviewed by Ann Willmore.

"Your Favourite Lines" is based on an original idea by Collin Langley.

Priscilla Martin
Rebecca

'If you think I'm one of the people who try to be funny at breakfast you're wrong,' he said. 'I'm invariably ill-tempered in the early morning. I repeat to you, the choice is open to you. Either you go to America with Mrs Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me.'
'Do you mean you want a secretary or something?'
'No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.'
Rebecca, Ch.6, p.57, Virago (2003).

I specially like Max's proposal because it's so unromantic. I get irritated by Daphne du Maurier being described as a 'romantic novelist', when her fiction is so full of miserable marriages and the dangers of love.
Dr Priscilla Martin.

Margaret Forster
Rebecca

Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered.
Rebecca, Ch.1, p.1, Virago (2003).

I think Daphne was brilliant at evoking atmosphere -“atmosphere” was always listed as her top priority - particularly of landscape. Her sense of place, and how it could influence mood/emotions, was so strong, and so important to the grip of her stories.
Margaret Forster.

As all that read Daphne's books should know, Margaret Forster's biography Daphne du Maurier, first published 1994 and re-issued in Daphne's centenary year 2007, is a fascinating, controversial and widely acclaimed work. This is essential reading for aficionados, all discovering du Maurier for the first time and occasional readers who know Rebecca but are less familiar with her other novels and short-stories. CL.

Tim Heald
The Parasites

'But why, Pappy? We're only going for a night.'
'When I pack,' said Pappy, 'I pack for all eternity.'
The Parasites, Ch.16, p.203, Virago (2005).

I adore 'Pappy', who is presumably Gerald du Maurier. He is a man after my own heart – a roguish, drunken hypochondriac. I love him, he always expects disaster, especially when packing.

Tim Heald is a popular writer and journalist, he lives in Fowey. AW.

Marion Gibson
The Birds and Other Stories

At the top of the hill he waited. He was much too soon. There was half an hour still to go. The east wind came whipping across the fields from the higher ground. He stamped his feet and blew upon his hands. In the distance he could see the clay hills, white and clean, against the heavy pallor of the sky. Something black rose from behind them, like a smudge at first, then widening, becoming deeper, and the smudge became a cloud, and the cloud divided again into five other clouds, spreading north, east, south and west, and they were not clouds at all; they were birds.
The Birds and Other Stories, The Birds, p.16, Virago (2004).

This is one of my favourite moments from Daphne du Maurier's writing-it was either this or the whole of Rebecca (!). I particularly love the long last sentence, spreading out like the flocks of birds from the simple, undefined and chilling 'something' at the start. The ominous contrast of the black clouds with the white clay hills is a classic horror device, and I like its absolutely specific Cornish reference too. I drive past the clay hills everyday to work at the university campus at Penryn, where I teach on the English degree programmes, and that this great horror story should be set so close to home is thrilling. The weirdness of the 'Cornish Alps', conical and mounded clay hills as high as the moors, resonates further if you know what they look like, so that du Maurier's homely-yet-terrifying birds are flying over a kind of earthly moonscape to find and attack the people in the tale. This is a cracking short story, and it is easy to see why Hitchcock chose to film it. Read and shudder.
Dr. Marion Gibson.

Jean Margaret Gwynne
Frenchman's Creek

The farm kitchen, where the tripper takes his tea, was part of Navron dining-hall, and the little half-stair, now terminating in a bricked-up wall, was the stair leading to the gallery. The rest of the house must have crumbled away, or been demolished, for the square farm-building, though handsome enough, bears little likeness to the Navron of the old prints, shaped like the letter E, and of the formal garden and the park there is no trace today. The tripper eats his split and drinks his tea, smiling upon the landscape, knowing nothing of the woman who stood there once, long ago, in another summer, who caught the gleam of the river amidst the trees, as he does, and who lifted her head to the sky and felt the sun.
He hears the homely farm-yard noises, the clanking of pails, the lowing of cattle, the rough voices of the farmer and his son as they call to each other across the yard, but his ears are deaf to the echoes of that other time when someone whistled softly from the dark belt of trees, his hands cupped to his mouth, and was swiftly answered by the thin, stooping figure crouching beneath the walls of the silent house, while above them the casement opened, and Dona watched and listened, her hands playing a little nameless melody upon the sill, her ringlets falling forward over her face.
Frenchman's Creek, Ch.1, p.2/3, Virago (2003).

The first book by Daphne that I read – found in my aunt's attic. I have been 'involved in her world' ever since.
Jean Margaret Gwynne.

Sheila Hodges
The Rebecca Notebook & Other Memories

It may be thought, by churchgoing readers, that during the course of this peaceful Sunday I continue to neglect my Maker. On the contrary, conversing with beast and bird is my way of giving thanks. And if anything deepens belief in a Creator, it is by watching wildlife in the countryside, a constant miracle, and noting the changes in their routine through the four seasons: something that applies equally to the colour and growth of trees, plants and shrubs, even weeds. They all obey natural law, which is surely God's law.
The Rebecca Notebook, Sunday (1976), p.170, Virago (2004),

Sheila edited Daphne's work whilst working at Victor Gollancz from 1943-1981.

In her biography of Daphne, A Portrait of Daphne du Maurier, Ch.25, Out of Eden, p.265/6, Bantam Press (1991), Judith Cook recalls Daphne writing about Kilmarth, 'The grounds abounded with wildlife - badgers and foxes, owls, jackdaws, swallows and martins and a host of butterflies.'
Noël Welch, Jeanne du Maurier's companion for many years, wrote an article in 1973 entitled 'The Du Mauriers' for The Cornish Review (No.24), comparing the three du Maurier sisters. 'Like their father they all love bird watching,' Noel recalls. In fact Gerald was a keen ornithologist, a passion clearly passed on to Daphne. In Frenchman's Creek alone there are over 90 references to birds, including fifteen different species. QED. CL.

Sheila Hodges
The King's General

The sea is very white and still, without a breath upon it, and only a single thread of wash upon the covered Cannis rock. The jackdaws fly homeward to their nests in the warren. The sheep crop the short turf, before they too rub together beneath the stone wall by the winnowing place. Dusk comes slowly to the Gribben hill, the woods turn black, and suddenly, with stealthy pad, a fox creeps from the trees in the thistle park, and stands watching me, his ears pricked…Then his brush twitches and he is gone…
The King's General, Ch.28, p.287, Virago (2004).

This shows Daphne's love of the countryside and her acute observation of the changing seasons and of the flora and fauna which she noticed on her walks. She is not given enough credit for her beautiful descriptions of nature.
Sheila Hodges.

Avril Horner
Rule Britannia

The cropped white hair, curling at the nape of the neck, gave her the appearance not of a famous beauty and actress who, when she celebrated her eightieth birthday in two weeks' time, would finger nosegays and Interflora tributes with a graceful bow, but of an aged warrior, possibly a Roman legionary, who after long idleness and years of peace lifted up his head and scented battle.
Rule Britannia, Ch.2, p.13, Virago (2004).

Emma glanced nervously at her grandmother. At least she hadn't got her peaked cap on, so she didn't look too much like Mao Tse-tung. Actually, with her white hair brushed upwards like that she looked rather good. Formidable, in fact. On the other hand, it might have been better if she had been dressed to suit her near-eighty years, perhaps in a sensible skirt, and worn a soft cardigan around her shoulders, preferably pale blue, instead of that Robin Hood jerkin with leather sleeves.
Rule Britannia, Ch.3, p.29, Virago (2004).

I've chosen these two extracts from du Maurier's Rule Britannia, published in 1972, because I admire the way she chooses to make her main character, 'Mad', a feisty and unconventional octogenarian, whose behaviour and values challenge every stereotype associated with old age. Regarded by most critics as an odd and often unconvincing novel, Rule Britannia is nevertheless interesting in its anticipation of American imperialism and its attempt to present old age as a positive phase in a woman's life. As I grow older myself, I warm to du Maurier's continual desire to challenge conventional perceptions, whether they relate to sexual identity, gender relations or old age. Aged sixty-five when she published this novel, du Maurier puts something of herself (as well as that of the actress Gladys Cooper) into this redoubtable and energetic older heroine.
Avril Horner.

Avril Horner is Emeritus Professor of English, Kingston University, and co-author (with Sue Zlosnik) of Daphne du Maurier: Writing, Identity and the Gothic Imagination (Macmillan, 1998), as well as several articles on the author and her work. CL.