Rebecca's Tale is told by Ellie Julyan, the Colonel's youngest daughter, who cares for her father at home. The narrative shifts produce a very different structure from the original "Rebecca", as well as a more postmodern tone that emphasizes the various narrators' unreliability. Also, the book is sometimes placed in a separate genre: while "Rebecca" is classified as a Gothic novel (du Maurier detested its categorization as a romance), "Rebecca’s Tale" is often considered a mystery. "Rebecca’s Tale" continues twenty years after du Maurier's conclusion and begins with the same classic line: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Most
Daphne du Maurier novel "Mary Anne" (1954) is a fictionalised account of her great-great-grandmother, Mary Anne Clarke née Thompson (1776–1852), who, from 1803–08, was mistress of Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany (1763–1827). He was the "Grand Old Duke of York" of the nursery rhyme, a son of King George III, and brother of King George IV and King William IV. The central character of her last novel, "Rule Britannia", is an aging actress, thought to be based on Gladys Cooper (to whom it is dedicated). Du Maurier's short stories are darker: "The Birds", "Don't Look Now", "The Apple Tree", and "The