Daphne du Maurier Daphne du Maurier Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English author and playwright. Although she is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but have since earned an enduring reputation for narrative craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels "Rebecca", "My Cousin Rachel", and "Jamaica Inn", and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight". Du Maurier spent much of
The Scapegoat (novel) The Scapegoat (novel) The Scapegoat is a 1957 novel by Daphne du Maurier. In 1959, it was made into a film of the same name, starring Sir Alec Guinness. It was also the basis of a film broadcast in 2012 starring Matthew Rhys and written and directed by Charles Sturridge. The plot concerns an Englishman who meets his double, a French aristocrat, while visiting France, and is forced into changing places with him. The Englishman is a single, rather lonely academic, and he finds himself caught up in all the intrigues and passions of his double's complex family. John, an