Books

Du Maurier, Daphne. REBECCA. A Play In Three Acts. London: Victor Gollanz Ltd, 1940. First Edition, first and only printing, 1939 copyright date on the verso of the title. 7 ½ by 4 ½, 120pp. A Near Fine copy (black cloth with a paper label to the spine, the slightest abrasion to the boards) in a Near Fine unrestored entirely original dust jacket (tiny bit of creasing to the spine panel tip else remarkably complete. The DJ has a clip to the front flap; but it's likely not a price clip as the only other dust jacket image we've ever seen of this exceedingly scarce book had no printed price. REBECCA, the author's most famous work, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture, and remains one of the most highly acclaimed films of its era. Rebecca's wildly popular 1938 psychological thriller of a woman's obsession with her husband's first wife likely may have encouraged Daphne du Maurier in 1939 to pen her own adaption of it as a three act play, It premiered in early 1940 with Celia Johnson and Margaret Rutherford in the leading roles, and played for six months and 350+ performances at the Queen's Theatre in London's West End until the theater was bombed to bits on September 7th, 1940, during one of the single most deadly air conflicts of the Battle of Britain. THIS COPY HAS DAPHNE DU MAURIER'S PERSONAL SIGNED EX-LIBRIS BOOKPLATE on the front paste-down (the same bookplate one very occasionally finds in the 1938 First Edition of the novel). BUT IT IS ALSO INSCRIBED on the title: "To Clive Hirschhorn/ from/ Daphne du Maurier/ 1989." Hirschhorn was the theater critic for the British Sunday Express. Rebecca, the novel, had a first print run of 20,000 copies. This printing of her theatrical adaptation appears to have had a tiny print run making this volume far more difficult to find in comparison. More so, in this superb condition, ever more so with her signed bookplate, especially with a personal inscription to a known colleague.

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. The novel 'Rebecca', by Daphne du Maurier, begins with this evocative sentence, setting the tone for a story of romance, jealousy, and intrigue. The unnamed protagonist, a young and naive woman, marries the charismatic Maxim de Winter after a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo. Upon moving to his ancestral estate, Manderley, she confronts the pervasive influence of his late wife, Rebecca, whose legacy lives on long after her death.