Daphne du Maurier of the "nation's best-loved novel" on the BBC's 2003 survey The Big Read. Other significant works include "The Scapegoat", "The House on the Strand", and "The King's General". The last is set in the middle of the first and second English Civil Wars, written from the Royalist perspective of Du Maurier's adopted Cornwall. Several of Du Maurier's other novels have also been adapted for the screen, including "Jamaica Inn", "Frenchman's Creek", "Hungry Hill", and "My Cousin Rachel". The Hitchcock film "The Birds" (1963) is based on a treatment of one of her short stories, as is the film "Don't Look
Philip MacDonald and Michael Hogan adapted the novel "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier, from which Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison created the screenplay for "Rebecca", the 1940 film. Sherwood and Harrison were nominated for an Academy Award. In later years MacDonald wrote television scripts for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" ("Malice Domestic", 1957) and "Perry Mason" ("The Case of the Terrified Typist", 1958). His novel "Patrol" was issued as one of the first twenty Penguin Books, and, as "W.J. Stuart", he wrote the novelisation of the 1956 science fiction film "Forbidden Planet". MacDonald also infrequently dabbled in science fiction under his own name,