Daphne du Maurier expressed frustration that critics thought Rebecca a mere romantic potboiler rather than the study of a relationship between a powerful man and a woman without power. It’s du Maurier’s great skill that makes it possible for her to do this, and what unfolds is a compelling tale about a relationship built on suspicion and shifting power relations. This is one of those books where the novelist and reader see more than the narrator sees.

Here, it’s the man narrating the novel, and there’s a fascinating dichotomy between what he tells us and what du Maurier, through her manipulation of his perceptions, tells us. She is 10-15 years older than him, and again, we have a story of one person, immature, who tries to understand the complexities of an elder they’re drawn to. My Cousin Rachel is narrated by a naïve young man named Philip who admits to his house and falls in love with his cousin’s widow. The younger woman, quite earnest, tells the story, and she spends the novel trying to figure out the enigmatic personalities of the people she lives with, her husband’s included. He is remote and difficult to connect with. She does not know him well when they marry, and it turns out he has a good bit of mystery and baggage in his past. Rebecca charts the relationship between a young, inexperienced woman with the older man she marries. Du Maurier again works in the mystery-romance mode, and to a large degree, My Cousin Rachel inverts her most famous novel’s premise. Published in 1951, it takes place-not unlike her earlier Rebecca (1938)-on a sprawling estate in the author’s beloved Cornwall. Beautiful, sophisticated, and magnetic, Philip cannot help but feel drawn to Rachel.Īnd yet, questions still linger: might she have had a hand in Ambrose's death? And how, exactly, did Ambrose die? As Philip pursues the answers to these questions, he realizes that his own fate could hang in the balance.Daphne du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachel is a study in character ambiguity.

But when she arrives at the estate, Rachel seems to be a different woman from the one described in Ambrose's letters. Jealous of his marriage, racked by suspicion at the hints in Ambrose's letters, and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart. There he falls in love and marries a mysterious distant cousin named Rachel - and there he dies suddenly. But the cozy world the two construct is shattered when Ambrose sets off on a trip to Florence. Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in Philip as his heir, and Philip grows to love Ambrose's grand estate as much as he does. Orphaned at an early age, Philip Ashley is raised by his benevolent older cousin, Ambrose. Daphne du Maurier's classic novel of lust, suspicion, and obsession that inspired major motion picture starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin.

My cousin rachel du maurier