Daphne du Maurier is a famous English writer, and was engaged in writing all her life. She was a skillful master of detective and historical novels, biographies - books about the lives of famous people, theater plays, as well as books about the county of Cornwall. Most of Daphne du Maurier's short stories are written in the genre of psychological thriller, and her most famous novel, Rebecca, is a classic Gothic novel.
The novel My Cousin Rachel was published in 1951. It combined in itself elements of a psychological thriller and of a romance novel. There can be drawn a parallel between My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca, as in both novels the main character is not introduced as an acting one, and we can only put together and imagine the main heroine from different pieces of puzzles, from the stories of other people about her. Threat and attractiveness emanating from the main character is very clearly felt in both the novels. But the main difference between the novel about Rachel is that the heroine still appears in the very center of the whole story, and events begin to spin around her.
At the same time, Daphne does not give an assessment of the described events, giving the reader the right to figure out where is black and where is white. The author is only an observer and narrator of this tragedy.
The novel My Cousin Rachel is a story of love and separation, hypocrisy, jealousy, betrayal and death – all the elements an intense family life is made up of. Daphne Du Maurier, the master of psychological intrigue, keeps the reader in constant tension throughout the story.
In 1969, Daphne du Maurier was awarded the Commander Cross of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to English literature. The novel has been filmed for several times, and the most recent screening was in 2017, with the same title as the book.
