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.

Alan Titchmarsh
Rebecca

We stood on a slope of a wooded hill, and the path wound away before us to a valley, by the side of a running stream. There were no dark trees here, no tangled undergrowth, but on either side of the narrow path stood azaleas and rhododendrons, not blood-coloured like the giants in the drive, but salmon, white, and gold, things of beauty and of grace, drooping their lovely, delicate heads in the soft summer rain.
The air was full of their scent, sweet and heady, and it seemed to me as though their very essence had mingled with the running waters of the stream, and become one with the falling rain and the dank rich moss beneath our feet. There was no sound here but the tumbling of the little stream, and the quiet rain. When Maxim spoke, his voice was hushed too, gentle and low, as if he had no wish to break upon the silence.
'We call it the Happy Valley,' he said.
Rebecca, Ch.10, p.121, Virago (2003).

Rebecca has haunted me since I first read it in the shed by the bowling green up in Yorkshire. As a fifteen-year-old apprentice I was taking shillings from folk who wanted to play bowls in the evening - a bit of overtime to supplement my £3.7s 6d wages. It rained all week, no-one came. I was sat in the gloomy shed and was transported to Cornwall and the haunting atmosphere of Manderley. It seemed that Mrs Danvers was peeping in through the shed window. Alan Titchmarsh.

Alan's enthusiasm for Rebecca was also evident from BBC's Big Read of 2003. Then the British public voted Daphne's most popular book number 14 in the top 100 favourite novels of all time. CL.

Piers Dudgeon
Castle Dor

It seemed to the doctor, standing there by the black pit which perhaps less than a dozen years or so ago had served as a mine shaft and been discontinued, that he hovered now in strange and sickening fashion on the threshold of another world. Whatever he said or did in the present time would only be repetition of a day gone by, and anyone who listened to his voice calling in the darkness would hear it as the voice of another, dead these thirteen hundred years.
'Trestane!' he called. 'Trestane!' and the sound of the changed name was not foolish in his ears, but strangely ominous, for the echo came back to him without the sharpness of his first cry. Now with a melancholy haunting note, the widely flung 'Trestane' sounded and died, and the echo was a whisper scarcely louder than a sigh.
Then, gripping his stick firmly in his hands, yet holding his breath with wonder, Doctor Carfax watched a figure rise slowly from the pit beyond him, climbing hand over hand from the depths, now slipping, now secure, and there was black mud about his head and shoulders, and blood upon his face, and the eyes were wild and staring...
'Who calls?'
Castle Dor, Ch.30, 'Then I must die for love of thee', p.263/4, Virago (2004).

In 1961-2, Daphne du Maurier and her husband, Tommy, researched Castle Dor together.
Her letters reveal: 'How often Tommy and I - the search for Tristan constantly in mind - strolled past Woodget Pyll and up the lane above, beside Lantyan Woods, past Lantyan Farm and down to the further creek beneath the viaduct, and wondered whether one of the islands, formed by the mud-flats in the creek when the tide withdraws, could have been the fighting ground of Tristan and Morholt'.
Here, in Castle Dor, Tristan is re-born as Amyot at Castle an Dinas, the finest hill fort in all Cornwall, in present time. This much neglected novel begun by J.M.Barrie's great friend, the Cornishman Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch returns the legend of Tristan to modern Cornwall, and put Daphne and her husband in touch with the area as never before. Piers Dudgeon.

Piers Dudgeon is the editor and co-publisher of Daphne du Maurier: Enchanted Cornwall – Her Pictorial Memoir, Penguin Group (1989) and author of Captivated: J.M. Barrie, the du Mauriers, and the dark side of Neverland, Chatto & Windus (2008). CL.

Minette Walters
Don't Look Now and Other Stories

Lady Althea dropped the piece of bread back into her bag, and was instantly aware, from the odd sensation in her mouth, that something was terribly wrong. She thrust her tongue upwards. It pricked against two sharp points. She looked down again at the piece of bread, and there, impaled in the ring, were her two front teeth, capped by her dentist just before she left London. She seized the hand-mirror in horror. The face that was hers belonged to her no longer. The woman who stared back at her had two small filed pegs stuck in her upper gums where the teeth should have been. They looked like broken matchsticks, discoloured, black. All trace of beauty had gone. She might have been some peasant who, old before her time, stood begging at a street corner…

'Oh, I say,' murmured Eric Chaseborough, 'bad luck. What a wretched thing to happen.'

He looked about him helplessly, as if, amongst the people mounting the steps, there might be someone who could give them the address of a dentist in Jerusalem.
Don't Look Now and Other Stories, The Way of The Cross, p.202/3, Penguin Books (2006).

This piece is from one of my favourite Daphne du Maurier short stories. It's a wonderful example of the light and shade in Daphne's writing. People often forget what a wonderful sense of humour she had, and how wittily drawn some of her characters were. The Way of the Cross is about the journey a disparate and not very congenial group of English people make to Jerusalem, and the strange routes some of them take towards redemption. This extract involves Lady Althea Mason, an appalling snob, who prides herself on her dignity and beauty. Minette Walters.

Minette Walters wrote the introduction to the Virago edition of The Rendezvous and Other Stories. CL

Jessica Gardner
The du Mauriers

The sea at Dover was whipped with a white foam, and the packet-boat rocked uneasily at her berth beside the wharf. The little knot of passengers stood huddled together on the quay, postponing as long as possible the departure. The chalk cliffs of English leant with supreme security against the grey menace of the sky. Gulls darted to the sleek harbour water with fretful cries. Already in the wet air there was the flavour of fish, and stale food, and that indescribable boat smell, pitchy and sour, that assails the sensitive nostrils of those who must embark against their will.
The du Mauriers, Ch.3, p.21, Virago (2004).

This passage from The Du Mauriers, a fictionalised biography of family history, represents the moment of departure from England to France of the Clarke family, including Mary Anne (Daphne du Maurier's great-great grandmother) and Ellen (her great-grandmother). In a few pages, Ellen will see for the first time a little boy called Louis. She'll meet Louis-Mathurin Busson du Maurier again later in the book in Paris and, with their marriage, the du Maurier dynasty is founded. Their son, George du Maurier, was the famous Victorian artist and novelist and grandfather to Daphne. The Du Mauriers may not be her best-known book, but the family archives held at the Special Collections of the University of Exeter reach right back to the early nineteenth-century, with evidence of the real lives of Mary Anne, Ellen, Louis and George du Maurier. In this book, Daphne du Maurier weaves together imaginative and documentary evidence to create a dramatic narrative of the family history that meant so much to her. For me, it brings the history evidence in the archive to life. Jessica Gardner.

Dr Jessica Gardner is Head of Special Collections at the University of Exeter. AW.

Christine Faunch
The Loving Spirit

Janet knelt beside the stream, and touched a pale forgotten primrose that grew wistfully near the water's edge. A blackbird called from the branch above her head, and flew away, scattering the white blossom on her hair. The flaming gorse bushes breathed in the sun, filling the air with a rich sweet scent, a medley of honey and fresh dew.
The Loving Spirit, Book 1, Janet Coombe (1830-1863), Ch.1, p.4, Virago (2003).

I love this introduction to Janet Coombe on the day of her wedding to her cousin, Thomas. The spring air is full of anticipation both of the new season and of the new adventure. The beauty and fragility of nature is symbolised in the pale primrose. The flight of the blackbird, scattering blossom onto her hair, juxtaposed with the heady scent of the gorse in the sun, symbolises the conflict between her inner soul's desire to fly away over the hills and the sweet but safe commitment she will make to 'settle down' with a good man and begin the dynasty. It is, of course, the calm before the storms and turmoil which comes later in the book, but it's also the perfect evocation of a spring day. Christine Faunch.

Christine Faunch is curator of the Special Collections archive at the University of Exeter. AW.

Billie Graeme
The Rebecca Notebook & Other Memories

Another World (1947)

All of this poem especially the end:

… But if I must
Go wandering in Time and seek the source
Of my life force,
Lend me your sable wings, that as I fall
Beyond recall,
The sober stars may tumble in my wake,
For Jesus'sake.
The Rebecca Notebook & Other Memories, Poems, p.179, Virago (2004).

Billie Graeme.

Billie Graeme
The Loving Spirit

Joseph felt the longing rise in his heart for Plyn. He wanted to look upon the quiet waters of the harbour, and the little cottages clustered about the hill, with the blue smoke curling from their crooked chimneys. He wanted to feel the cobbled stones of the old slip beneath his feet, where the nets were spread to dry in the sun, and where the blue-jerseyed fishermen leaned against the harbour wall. He wanted to hear the sound of the waves, splashing against the rocks below the Castle ruins, and the rustle of the trees in Truan woods, the movement of sheep and cattle in the hushed fields, the stirring of a rabbit in the high hedges that bordered the twisting lanes. He longed once more for the faces of simple folk, for the white wings of the crying gulls, and the call of the bells from Lanoc Church.
The Loving Spirit, Book 2, Joseph Coombe (1863-1900), Ch.2, p.118, Virago (2003).

The choice of favourite lines was absorbing and time-consuming requiring a rereading of much of Daphne's writing. My final decision is based on her love of the natural things around her at Menabilly and later at Kilmarth. She loved the daily walks through the woods down to the sea and never tired of watching the rhythm of the waves…Perhaps that is when the ideas for the magic of the plots for her writings came to be. Billie Graeme.

Rhythm is a recurring theme: Sheila Hodges, Daphne's former editor, wrote how she became fascinated by the sound of words and rhythm of phrases. CL.

Billie and her late husband Harry Graeme came to live in Fowey in 1948 and opened their photographic business in the old Noah's Ark in Fore Street. Harry died in 1965 but photography continued with painting, Billie's first love, taking a back seat. Billie was joined by Jim Matthews in 1967 who subsequently qualified in Photography. Billie now sells her oil and watercolour paintings and has published books of her paintings and drawings. Billie knew Daphne well and Jim's memorable 1970's photograph of her can be seen in Bookends of Fowey. CL.

Billie Graeme
Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer

…- I rose at five a.m., pulled across the harbour in my pram, walked through the sleeping town, and climbed out on the cliffs just as the sun himself climbed out of Pont hill behind me. The sea was glass. The air was soft and misty warm. And the only other creature out of bed was a fisherman, hauling crab-pots, at the harbour mouth. It gave me a fine feeling of conceit, to be up before the world. I came down to Pridmouth bay, passing the solitary cottage by the lake, and, opening a small gate, saw a narrow path leading to the woods. Now, at last, I had the day before me, and no owls, no shadows could turn me back.
Myself when Young, Ch.6, Apprenticeship, p.151, Virago (2004).

The choice of favourite lines was absorbing and time-consuming requiring a rereading of much of Daphne's writing. My final decision is based on her love of the natural things around her at Menabilly and later at Kilmarth. She loved the daily walks through the woods down to the sea and never tired of watching the rhythm of the waves…Perhaps that is when the ideas for the magic of the plots for her writings came to be. Billie Graeme.

Rhythm is a recurring theme: Sheila Hodges, Daphne's former editor, wrote how she became fascinated by the sound of words and rhythm of phrases. CL.

Billie and her late husband Harry Graeme came to live in Fowey in 1948 and opened their photographic business in the old Noah's Ark in Fore Street. Harry died in 1965 but photography continued with painting, Billie's first love, taking a back seat. Billie was joined by Jim Matthews in 1967 who subsequently qualified in Photography. Billie now sells her oil and watercolour paintings and has published books of her paintings and drawings. Billie knew Daphne well and Jim's memorable 1970's photograph of her can be seen in Bookends of Fowey. CL.

Myself When Young was originally published with the title Growing Pains: The Shaping of a Writer. AW.