Rebecca (novel) Rebecca (novel) Rebecca is a Gothic novel by English author Dame Daphne du Maurier. A best-seller, "Rebecca" sold 2,829,313 copies between its publication in 1938 and 1965, and the book has never gone out of print. The novel is remembered especially for the character Mrs Danvers, the fictional estate Manderley, and its opening line: While working as the companion to a rich American woman on holiday in Monte Carlo, the unnamed narrator, a naïve young woman in her early 20s, becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, George Fortescue Maximilian “Maxim” de Winter, a 42-year-old widower. After a fortnight of courtship,
George du Maurier Illustrated Times", "The Cornhill Magazine", and the religious periodical Good Words. Furthermore, he did illustrations for the serialization of Charles Warren Adams's "The Notting Hill Mystery", which is thought to be the first detective story of novel length to have appeared in English. Among several other novels he illustrated was "Misunderstood" by Florence Montgomery in 1873. Owing to his deteriorating eyesight, du Maurier reduced his involvement with "Punch" in 1891 and settled in Hampstead, where he wrote three novels. His first, "Peter Ibbetson", was a modest success at the time and later adapted to stage and screen, most notably in