Daphne Du Maurier, who published throughout the middle years of the twentieth century, was primarily a novelist, though she wrote non-fiction—biography, plays, and screenplays—as well. Her work was adapted into film and television by such esteemed people and organizations as
Alfred Hitchcock and the
BBC. Nevertheless critical opinion of her filmed work has not been high. Because two romance novels,
Rebecca and
Frenchman's Creek, were Daphne Du Maurier's best-loved and most-remembered works, she struggled, without success, to prove her literary worth outside that genre for the rest of her career. She is often thought of as writing primarily for women, though she frequently used the male voice, and evidently felt at home in it.
Milestones
13 May 1907 DDM was born in
London, the second of three daughters in her family.

15 May 1929 DDM's first story, "And Now to God the Father", was published in
The Bystander, earning her the tidy sum of £10.

By early August 1938 DDM had an even greater success than her previous work with the gothic romance novel
Rebecca, which in time became a popular classic.

1940 DDM's play
Rebecca, based on her novel of the same title, was performed in
Edinburgh, the same year that the film version won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

28 September 1987 DDM published a final collection of short stories,
Classics of the Macabre, to mark her eightieth birthday.

19 April 1989 DDM died at
Par in
Cornwall, of heart failure.
