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
Daphne du Maurier whose bohemian artist son-in-law falls for her. The central character of Stella was originally based on Ellen Doubleday, the prominent wife of a United States book publisher. It imagined what Ellen might have been in an English setting and in different circumstances. Again directed by Irene Hentschel, it opened at the Aldwych Theatre on 15 December 1948 with Gertrude Lawrence as Stella. It closed in August 1949 after 267 performances. She was known as Daphne du Maurier from 1907 to 1932, when she married Frederick Browning. Still writing as Daphne du Maurier (1932–46), she was otherwise titled Lady Browning; Daphne