In an engaging prose style, Auerbach, a scholar of Victorian and feminist studies, reveals her literary passion for du Maurier, which started at age 12 while she was attending summer camp. She devotes a chapter to du Maurier's family--her grandfather, novelist George du Maurier, and her father, actor--manager Gerald du Maurier-and how these strong men were reflected in her fiction, turning her novels and stories into a reaction against her male heritage. Auerbach also examines film versions of du Maurier's work, revealing how Hitchcock and others romanticized the dark vision of Rebecca and other fictions. While the critic's emphasis on the gloomy side of du Maurier may turn off some potential readers, she does succeed in her aim of rescuing her chosen author from the label of "romantic writer." For undergraduate and large public library collections.--Morris Hounion, New York City Technical Coll., Brooklyn Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Du Maurier is the author of almost twenty novels, articles, plays, memoirs and short stories; yet is known for a relatively limited handful of popular works. Daphne Du Maurier: Haunted Heiress analyzes her lesser-known volumes and their characters, providing a strong literary analysis of metaphors in her writing, and ethnic and social observations of her choices and times. The result is a revealing, absorbing study.
"Fascinating, profoundly intelligent, and stunningly well written."—Signs
"Auerbach is . . . here, as everywhere, a pleasure to read, as she rescues du Maurier from her Rebecca fate, giving her her due, and indicating one of the ways in which women, disliking the assigned female role, learn to live with it and vindicate their sense of deprivation in writing."—Carolyn G. Heilbrun
"In the bright light of Auerbach's book, all sorts of unsuspected hauntings and legacies become visible."—Lorna Scott Fox, London Review of Books
"A fascinating portrait of du Maurier's career as family chronicler, avid researcher and frank anatomist of familial cruelty."—Catherine Saint Louis, New York Times
"An engaging blend of autobiography and critical appraisal."—Robert Taylor, Boston Globe
"Outrageous and winsomely fresh."—Emily Gordon, Newsday
"In an engaging prose style, Auerbach, a scholar of Victorian and feminist studies, reveals her literary passion for du Maurier. . . . She devotes a chapter to du Maurier's family—her grandfather, novelist George du Maurier, and her father, actor—manager Gerald du Maurier-and how these strong men were reflected in her fiction, turning her novels and stories into a reaction against her male heritage. Auerbach also examines film versions of du Maurier's work, revealing how Hitchcock and others romanticized the dark vision of Rebecca and other fictions."—Library Journal