The Birds: About Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989)

Daphne du Maurier was born on May 13, 1907, in Regent’s Park, London, England. Her father, Sir Gerald du Maurier, was a famous actor-manager and her mother, Muriel Beaumont, was an actress. Her paternal grandfather was George du Maurier, author of the best-selling novel Trilby (1894). As a child, du Maurier was educated at home and spent three terms at Parisian finishing schools. Her parents afforded her a great deal of freedom, and du Maurier traveled in her youth and spent her time writing stories and poetry, which her father encouraged.

The magazine The Bystander published du Maurier’s first short story, “And Now to God the Father,” in May 1929. Du Maurier subsequently set an objective to write a novel and moved to Cornwall, where she wrote The Loving Spirit. It was published to high acclaim in 1931. Her following novels were much different from her first, and the fourth novel, a biography of her father, caught the attention of Victor Gollancz, who founded the British publishing firm Gollancz. He encouraged her to lean into her strengths as a writer, one of which he identified as creating powerful settings and mood. She took his advice, and her next novel, Jamaica Inn (1936), was a best seller.

In 1932, du Maurier married Major Frederick Arthur Montague Browning. They had two daughters and one son. In 1936, du Maurier moved with her husband and first daughter to Egypt where Browning was stationed. These were difficult years for du Maurier, but she wrote her best-known novel Rebecca during this time. (The novel was the basis for an Academy Award Best Picture winning 1940 film of the same name, which—like the 1963 film adaption of “The Birds”—was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.) Her husband went to war in 1943, and du Maurier and her children moved to Cornwall. She rented Menabilly, a mansion that she had come to love during her other years spent living in Cornwall. Here, she continued to write novels, short stories, and to research history, especially historic events set in Cornwall. During her life, du Maurier wrote over three dozen works of fiction, history, and biography. Rebecca and “The Birds,” which was published in her 1952 collection The Apple Tree, are among the eight of her works that have been adapted into films.

Du Maurier was a private and quiet person. She lived most of her life in Cornwall, apart from her husband, who lived in London after the war. When he died in 1965, she feared her imagination was waning. During this time, she struggled with depression, which was made worse when she could not renew the lease to her beloved home at Menabilly. When the Queen knighted her husband, du Maurier was given the title Lady Browning. In 1969, the Queen awarded du Maurier the title Dame of the British Empire (DBE), allowing her to be called Lady du Maurier as well, though she never used either title. On April 19, 1989, she passed away from heart failure. She was and remains an influential writer. She was a role model for women writers, especially because of the film adaptations of her popular stories. Most notable, though, was her ability to write strong settings in the Gothic tradition with a modern flair.

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