Rebecca (novel) century, and published posthumously in 1873. In 1944 in the United States, du Maurier, her US publishers, Doubleday, and various parties connected with the 1940 film version of the novel, were sued for plagiarism by Edwina L. MacDonald who alleged that du Maurier had copied her novel "Blind Windows". Du Maurier successfully rebutted the allegations. Du Maurier delivered the manuscript to her publisher, Victor Gollancz, in April 1938. On receipt, the book was read in Gollancz's office and her "editor, Norman Collins, reported simply: 'The new Daphne du Maurier contains everything that the public could want.'" Gollancz's "reaction to "Rebecca"
Gerald du Maurier Camber's Ladies" (1932), a German doctor in "I Was a Spy" (1933), the emperor's valet in "Catherine the Great" (1934) and, soon before his final illness, Wessensee in the Michael Balcon version of "Jew Süss" (1934). Du Maurier was a regular cigarette smoker, and the du Maurier brand was named after him as a paid endorsement deal (he did not smoke them himself), to which he agreed to help pay taxes owed. He served as President of the Actors' Orphanage Fund (now the Actors' Charitable Trust) from 1914 to his death, when he was succeeded by Noël Coward. He died