Mrs de Winter Mrs de Winter Mrs de Winter is a novel by Susan Hill published in 1993. It is the sequel to the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier. When Manderley burned, tormented Maxim de Winter and his demure second wife fled the ghosts of a dark, unspoken yesterday and now have come home to England, to bury what was and start anew. But the sensual warmth of a golden autumn cannot mask the chill of a lingering evil. For October's gentle breeze whispers that Rebecca -beautiful, mysterious, malevolent Rebecca- is haunting their lives once more. Critical reviews have been generally bad,
Daphne du Maurier affair with Gertrude Lawrence, as well as her attraction to Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her U.S. publisher Nelson Doubleday, were cited. Du Maurier stated in her memoirs that her father had wanted a son; being a tomboy, she wished to have been born a boy. "The Daphne du Maurier Companion", edited by Helen Taylor, includes Taylor's claims that du Maurier confessed to her in 1965 that she had had an incestuous relationship with her father and that he had been a violent alcoholic. In correspondence that her family released to biographer Margaret Forster, du Maurier explained to a trusted