What is Rebecca about?
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again — and the woman telling you that still does not give you her name. This Rebecca summary follows Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel, first published on 5 August by Victor Gollancz in the UK. It sold more than double its 20,000-copy first printing within a month and has never gone out of print; by 1965 it had sold 2.8 million copies. Hitchcock's 1940 film won Best Picture. The story is gothic romance and crime, not a ghost story: Rebecca is dead before page one, and she never appears.
What genre is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier?
It is a gothic novel with romance, mystery, and crime inside it, told in the first person by an unnamed narrator. Readers who want another house that remembers a dead woman more vividly than the living should read Jane Eyre next; Wuthering Heights covers related ground of a love that outlasts the person, told from the wrong side of the door.
Who is the narrator in Rebecca?
Rebecca summary
This Rebecca summary starts in Monte Carlo, where a shy companion marries Maxim de Winter after a fortnight and is taken to Manderley, his Cornish estate. Rebecca drowned in a sailing accident a year earlier, or so the neighborhood believes. Housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who was Rebecca's maid from childhood, keeps the west-wing bedroom as a shrine and tells the new wife she will never match her. Neighbours remember Rebecca as hostess, horsewoman, sailor. The narrator becomes sure Maxim still loves the first wife.
After the ball humiliation, Danvers goads her toward the window; a shipwreck interrupts. A diver finds Rebecca's boat with her body still aboard, which means the corpse Maxim identified months earlier was someone else. He then tells the truth: the marriage was a performance. Rebecca was cruel and promiscuous. The night she died she taunted him that she was carrying another man's child. He shot her, put her in the boat, and scuttled it. The inquest, once the boat is raised and the hull shows bored holes, still returns suicide.
How does Rebecca end?
Who are the main characters in Rebecca?
The second Mrs de Winter: The unnamed narrator, young, shy, and slowly talked out of her own outline by a dead woman's reputation.
Maxim de Winter: Owner of Manderley, who killed Rebecca and then spent a year living inside the lie.
Rebecca: The first wife, absent from every scene and present in every room.
Mrs Danvers: The housekeeper who keeps Rebecca's bedroom and nearly talks the narrator into jumping.
Jack Favell: Rebecca's cousin and lover, who tries to turn the inquest into blackmail.
Frank Crawley: Maxim's estate agent, one of the few people at Manderley the narrator can actually speak to.
Best quotes from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The most quoted lines from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, checked against the Goodreads work-quotes page for this title:
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
"Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind."
"I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say."
"We're not meant for happiness, you and I."
"The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea."
Frequently asked questions
What is the narrator's name in Rebecca?
Du Maurier never gives one. She is the second Mrs de Winter. The ball costume "Caroline de Winter" is a portrait she is tricked into copying, not a real name.
Is Rebecca a ghost story?
No. Rebecca is dead and never appears. The haunting is the preserved bedroom, the monograms, Mrs Danvers, and a household that still sets places for someone who is not coming down to dinner.
How does the Hitchcock film change Rebecca?
The Production Code would not let a murderer walk free, so the 1940 film turns Rebecca's death into an accident during an argument; Maxim only hides the body. In the novel he shoots her. The film also has Mrs Danvers die in the fire she sets; the book leaves her alive and the arson implied.
How does Rebecca end?
The inquest calls it suicide. A doctor reveals Rebecca was dying of cancer and could not have been pregnant. Maxim realizes she goaded him into killing her. Manderley burns as they drive home.
What age is Rebecca appropriate for?
There is no official rating. School Library Journal suggests grade nine and up, roughly fourteen, for murder, manipulation, adultery, terminal illness, and a scene in which Mrs Danvers urges the narrator to jump.
Is there a Rebecca movie besides Hitchcock?
Yes. Netflix released Ben Wheatley's version in 2020, with Lily James and Armie Hammer, rated PG-13. Hitchcock's 1940 film remains the famous one: eleven Oscar nominations, Best Picture, his only win in that category, though the statuette went to producer David O. Selznick.
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