Milwood Classics Book Club

If the Gothic Novel starts with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, it might end with Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Not in the sense that no one writes in the Gothic style anymore, but that it has evolved into a multitude of forms, but in that classic style with a remote house haunted by the past. Rebecca is the perfect execution of the form.

All the classic themes are here. A young woman finds herself swept away to a remote house on the Cornish countryside. Here, she encounters an unfriendly household and the cold treatment of her new and much older husband. All the time, she is haunted by the former lady of the house, Rebecca.

It is in the creation of atmosphere that this book earns every bit of its reputation. Emotion is the central theme of Gothic and du Maurier is one of the best at filling spaces with feeling. Rebecca is much remembered today, though seldom read. It has been well adapted to film, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock a year after the book was released.

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