Daphne Du Maurier
Frenchman's Creek (1941)
Author: Daphne du Maurier
Genre: Romance (Historical)
Plot Summary:
Seven years ago Lady Dona St. Columb made a bad marriage. She is now supremely bored with her role as a socialite among the members of Charles II's court. Goaded by her wild friends into ever more desperate feats of entertainment, one night she finds herself dressed as a highwayman robbing people who have left her own dinner-party. The incident sobers her up. She decides to escape the unhealthy environment by leaving her husband and taking her two children to an old family estate on the coast. She is looking for solitude in remote Cornwall but what she finds instead is a dashing French pirate sleeping in her house and hiding his ship in the creek that runs nearby. He isn't just any common pirate. A former nobleman turned to piracy out of the same need for escape that drove Dona to leave her husband, he is therefore a sensitive pirate who reads poetry, talks philosophy, and makes wistful drawings of seabirds. The two begin to date. She treats him to secret romantic dinners at her estate and he gives her a taste of his adventurous life, taking her onto his ship daily, and teaching her all he knows about the sea and piracy. They fall ever more in love each day, until the Frenchman realizes he has let his ship and crew linger in its hiding spot for more than two months and if he wants to avoid capture he must leave. He convinces Dona to take part in a daring last raid on the English coast before he departs. All goes well with the raid until the Frenchman makes a last ill-advised attempt to show off for Dona and is captured. Dona must now use all the piratical skills she's learned in order to save her love's life. SPOILER: Dona manages to save the pirate, but decides to let him leave for France without her. She returns to her family.
Geographical Setting: Cornwall and London
Time Period: The Restoration
Appeal Characteristics:
Daphne du Maurier's pacing is careful but compelling. She builds a subtle new mystery or unanswered question into each chapter which keeps us reading and helps to sooth any apprehensions we might have about the ridiculousness of the plot. Occasionally this pace will slow a bit to allow du Maurier to slip in a poetic description of the coastal setting, which becomes one of the most memorable aspects of the novel. For the most part, though, the story-line stays focused on romance and adventure. We are shown a basically modern relationship through the increasingly intimate dates between the two main characters and the historical setting is used merely as a backdrop to set up the novel's adventurous conclusion. The characterization is thin in most respects. Dona is the only character who develops in any way and the only one who is given much of a backstory. On the other hand, all the characters, no matter how static, have big personalities: our pirate is very dashing, our heroine is highly vivacious, our quipping servant overflows with sarcasm, and the vapid socialites are extremely vapid indeed. Amazingly, while all this is providing some thrills and laughs, du Maurier manages to keep her writing style elegant and moving. Her clear depiction of Dona's interior life draws us into the relationship's developments. Even the dialogue between Dona and the Frenchman succeeds in being thoughtful about the nature of freedom and escape without slowing down the story in the least.
Read-alikes: Those who enjoyed reading about Dona's desire to escape her lot in in life might like Anya Seton's The Winthrop Woman. This story of a puritan woman married into a prominent family of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and struggling in its oppressive environment, features romance and adventure along similar thematic lines, plus it is more rooted in factual history than Frenchman's Creek. Those who enjoyed du Maurier's ability to draw us into the developments of a relationship between two strong or eccentric characters might enjoy Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, the story of a English teenager hopelessly falling for an engaged American boy. Like Frenchman's Creek, it features a thoroughly depicted rural English setting. If anyone wishes du Maurier had put even more focus on romance and adventure and increased the pace, then Victoria Holt's The Captive might be a good suggestion. This is the story of a young woman rescued from pirates by a man who has fled England because he is falsely accused of murder. The two fall in love and the plucky heroine fights to clear his name. Those who don't mind if the romance is a little overshadowed by adventure might like Rafael Sabatini's The Sea-Hawk. It is the story of a kidnapped nobleman who becomes a ruthless Barbary coast pirate and, along with his feisty girlfriend Lady Rosamund, seeks revenge. Just like Frenchman's Creek, it is noted for its larger than life characters and its compelling pace. Another book along similar lines is Anthony Hope's Prisoner of Zenda. This story of a British nobleman mistaken for the king of the fantastical land of Ruritania is the quintessential swashbuckler. Again, there is more emphasis on the adventure than on the relationship between the hero and his heroine Princess Flavia, but it does feature the big personalities, quick pace, and escapist themes of Frenchman's Creek.
Red Flags: Some graphic violence
Rebecca (1938)
Author: Daphne Du Maurier
Genre: Romance (Gothic)/Mystery
Plot Summary:
The nameless heroine, a shy orphan girl making a living as a "companion" -- just better than a servant -- to an obnoxious, rich, old lady, meets the handsome, mercurial Maxim de Winter and in a few weeks, marries him. When they return to his family home of Maderley, the heroine finds the place figuratively haunted by the spirit of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, and literally haunted by the ghoulish head maid, Mrs. Danvers. Unease builds to genuine creepiness about halfway through, as the allusions to the dead Mrs. de Winter -- how lovely she was, how wonderful, etc. -- combine with the weird doings of Danvers, the closed west wing of the house, and a mysterious man. SPOILER: Eventually it turns out that Rebecca was not the wonderful person that so many believed, but a cruel woman who cheated on Maxim. Rebecca had not drowned, as previously believed: she was murdered by Maxim and her body sunk in her sailing boat. Oddly this revelation, and Maxim's escaping detection by the police, puts the heroine's anxieties to rest, and the two are happy. Unable to stand this happiness, and the betrayal of her beloved mistress Rebecca, Mrs. Danver burns Manderley to the ground.
Geographical Setting: England
Time Period: 1938
Appeal Characteristics:
Leisurely paced to start off with, this novel turns gothically twisted about halfway through, and the suspense doesn't give up for a while from there. The timid and average heroine serves as a good mediator between the audience and the rarified environment of Manderley, with its lands and servants. This novel will appeal to those with a little bit of patience, and an appreciation of classic Victorian mystery, which this closely resembles (not surprisingly, since Du Maurier's grandfather, George, wrote that great Victorian potboiler Trilby (which gave us the character Svengali, as well as the name for the hat). Also, Mrs. Danvers alone is reason enough to read this book, as she is a thrillingly demented character; Du Maurier has a gift for description that serves the
mood of the novel well.
Read-alikes: If you liked Rebecca, an excellent readalike would be Mistress of Mellyn, Victoria Holt. Holt is the next wave of "modern Gothic romance," after Du Maurier, and many say this is her at her best. Rebecca is reminiscent of the "woman in distress" story so common in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, especially "The Copper Beaches," but many others as well. If Holmes existed in the world of Rebecca, the new Mrs. de Winter would have gone to him. Another suggestion is The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. While Manderley is all but haunted by the spirit of Rebecca, the house in The Turn of the Screw is actually haunted. The same slow, creeping sensation of unease pervades this novel that fills the best parts in Du Maurier's novel. James does not hurry, but neither is he boring. Yet another young woman in a bad situation -- this one is a governess, which used to be the classic Gothic protagonist. Along with Holt, Mary Stewart is often listed as a successor to Du Maurier. Her book, Thornyhold, is another "strange old house" novel, in which a young woman experiences odd things. This one appears to have a touch of the supernatural, as one might expect from Stewart, who also wrote the Merlin Trilogy. Finally, The Dark on the Other Side by Barbara Michaels would be a good readalike. Considered both a suspense-romance novelist and a horror writer, Michaels is another of the "children of Du Maurier," along with Stewart. This one has many of the same elements -- strange house, creepy husband -- that Du Maurier set up as the standards in Rebecca.
Red Flags: Readers with very strict morals might do well to avoid this novel (see spoiler above). In addition, the book is slow going at the beginning, with a lot of maudlin yearning for the lost world of Manderley. In addition, Du Maurier's descriptions are sometimes so good that certain scenes are uncomfortably realistic for escapism
(arguments between Maxim and the heroine, for instance).
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