1971: Hit novel REBECCA was JUST A PHASE | Daphne du Maurier | Writers & Wordsmiths | BBC Archive

[@carolking6355]

I first read Rebecca when I was 16, nearly 70 years ago and loved every minute of it. In those days when I found a book I liked I read as many by that author which I could find in the library. I wish I could recall the Glass Blowers. I think that was another favourite. What a lively, lovely person Daphne was. ❤

[@clarsach29]

Lost count of the number of times I have read "The House on the Strand", to my mind the best combination of science fiction, historical drama and psychological thriller that I have ever read.

[@LisaChapman-fk4tf]

My favorite also. Was scrolling the comments to see if I was the only one!

[@WockyJabber]

I'm reading this now! Great book - just about the hit the last couple of chapters

[@alancawfield6549]

I love Daphne Du Maurier. I haven't read all of hers yet but Jamaica Inn and The Scapegoat are 2 of my all time favourite novels.

[@1258-Eckhart]

I started to listen to Jamaica Inn on BBC Sounds but found it too horrifying. Everyone seemed to want to bump everyone else off.

[@carmenbarroso5332]

Please in spanish. Thank you

[@milosmilosavljevic5577]

The only critical acclaim that's real is time, and her works aged gracefully

[@SharonMcwilliams78]

I read this book when I was 10 years old. My niece named Rebecca after my sister asked me to suggest a girls name. Incredible Author / Writer and woman.

[@Gardosunron]

I love her short stories, especially the birds.

[@davidtexmex1616]

A delightful, insightful, witty and upbeat author, sheer class ✨

[@Traveller69]

The lost art of intelligent conversation on television as well as the lost art of an interviewer letting an interviewee speak without constantly interrupting them.

[@GeoAce777]

You are so damn right about that

[@Pymmeh]

1:45 I love how inverted commas Alfred is absolutely hamming it up with the force of a thousand suns. More of this delightful lady please!

[@TheLightofAniu]

I adore Daphne du Maurier, she is the writer that made me want to write the books I write now; her style was so inspiring, literary but not overbearingly so, classic but tense and suspenseful. She knew how to have the finger on the pulse and give you moments of calmness and gradually rising tension. And as a writer I want to be her, when I come into my own. A writer who can keep the reader turning the page, enchanted and disturbed and terrified. Her short stories, especially “Don’t Look Now”, “The Apple Tree”, “Monte Verità”, “Not After Midnight”, and “The Birds”, are masterpieces. Her novels are remarkably varied and multifaceted and memorable. And the way she wrote was just flawless, be damned what the critics say. She never once wrote a boring story and she kept a nation guessing with “Rebecca”. It is small wonder it was one of the greatest literary successes of the 20th Century.

[@DazednDade]

learned about daphne through a book that covered her family, their losses, and their relation to jm barrie. i resonate with aspects of her personality and learned so much about her from that book. it’s called neverland i highly recommend

[@58christiansful]

Most memorable titles for me: Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Don’t Look Now (a story that really scared me!), Not After Midnight (another scary one), Frenchman’s Creek.

[@GeoAce777]

Don't Look Now, book AND film 😳😈

[@Angela-kc5ui]

Yes,agree but have not read The Frenchman’s Creek”.

[@sarahlouise7163]

my mum always had a book on the go, du Maurier, Cookson etc.

[@Loupdelou-ly1ve]

Wonderful interview with a fascinating woman, but other than the smoker's cough, I can't be sure du Maurier smoked - it really looked like she was holding her first ever cigarette and she was bum-puffing it!

[@NoosaHeads]

She was a stunner when she was young.

[@GeoAce777]

The Birds and Don't Look Now were PROPER

[@nothingiseverperfect]

That was so cool when she started smoking the cigarette 😭😭😂😂

[@bluejeanmeanie]

Has anyone here read Frenchman’s Creek? What are y’all’s opinions on it?

[@zaftra]

She's not what I expected. Got that stephen king jolly attitude.

[@pennydreadful5217]

Lovely lady, an introvert apparently

[@GeoAce777]

William De'ATH what!!!? last name is crazy 💀

[@pennydreadful5217]

Yes what's with the apostrophe? it's Death

[@holitipu]

Think you ll find the journos name is Wilfred not William

[@christianmonturanoii6539]

This is one sitwhere the movie might be better its my favorite movie I never read the book so would rhe book be my favorite book

[@bonnieleelee9936]

She sure was not inhaling

[@raresaturn]

I always assumed she was French

[@hilaryepstein6013]

A wonderful historic interview but would he have asked a male novelist of 65 if they'd noticed "a decline in the working powers"? Possibly not.

[@malcolmjawohowelll2892]

And possibly yes..... remember.that age might well have been viewed differently when average life expectancy was possibly less than the average 50 years later ..Thats my .opinion ....How easy it is without evidence to assume bias .

[@LeighRichards27]

Good question. It might be a coincidence but agatha christie also had to field similar questions from interviewers in her later years

[@pressureworks]

Why wouldn't he ?. Older folks, both male and female, are frequently asked similar questions.

[@malcolmjawohowelll2892]

@@LeighRichards27 a question about ageing as sometimes people slow down or have less vigour in being creative ..its quite normal as an interview has a format to work to in any eventuality

[@zaftra]

I know, lets shoehorn some totally irrelevant and pointless FEMINISM in.

[@edgyparrot]

Mum it’s not a phase

[@speedracer2841]

Daphne du Maurier plagiarized Carolina Nabuco's novel A Sucessora. Du Maurier and Nabuco shared the same editor at the time.