Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer - Softcover

Du Maurier, Daphne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330255894 ISBN 13: 9780330255899

Publisher: Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd, 1987

Synopsis

Both her novels and her non-fiction reveal Daphne du Maurier's overwhelming desire to explore her family's history. In Myself When Young, based on diaries that she kept from 1920-1932, the most famous du Maurier probes her own past, beginning with her earliest memories and encompassing the publication of her first book and her subsequent marriage. Here, the writer is open and sometimes painfully honest about the difficult relationship with her father; her education in Paris; early love affairs; her antipathy towards London life and the theatre; her intense love for Cornwall and her desperate ambition to succeed as a writer. The resulting portrait is of a captivating and complex character.

About this title

From the Publisher

Dame Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) wrote more than twenty-five acclaimed novels, short stories, and plays, including Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and The House on the Strand. She was also a passionate and skillful chronicler of her own remarkable family, which included artists, actors, speculators, writers, military men and courtesans. This is one of three of her finest biographical works to be reissued in the distinguished Virago Modern Classics series.

About the Author

Daphne du Maurier (1907-89) was born in London, the daughter of the famous actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the author and artist. In 1931 her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published. A biography of her father and three other novels followed, but it was the novel Rebecca that launched her into the literary stratosphere and made her one of the most popular authors of her day. In 1932, du Maurier married Major Frederick Browning, with whom she had three children.
Many of du Maurier's bestselling novels and short stories were adapted into award-winning films, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. In 1969 du Maurier was awarded a DBE. She lived most of her life in Cornwall, the setting for many of her books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Macmillan Education Australia Pty Ltd
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0330255894
• ISBN 13: 9780330255899
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1