|
Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) was the daughter of the legendary actor-manager Gerald du Maurier and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the author of the vastly successful late-Victorian novel Trilby and cartoonist for the magazine Punch. She grew up in London and Cornwall, where she would settle as an adult. Du Maurier published her first novel when she was twenty-three and would go on to write seventeen more, many of them best-sellers, including My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn, and Rebecca, one of the most popular novels of the twentieth century. In addition to her fiction, du Maurier wrote several family biographies, a biography of Branwell Brontë, a study of Cornwall, two plays, and a good deal of journalism. She was married to Tommy "Boy" Browning and was the mother of three children. »
Patrick McGrath is the author of two story collections and seven novels, including Port Mungo, Dr. Haggard's Disease, Spider (which he also adapted for the screen), and most recently, Trauma. Martha Peake: A Novel of the Revolution won Italy's Premio Flaiano Prize, and his 1996 novel, Asylum, was short-listed for both the Whitbread and the Guardian Fiction prizes. McGrath is the co-editor of a collection of short fiction, The New Gothic. He lives in New York. »
|
Don't Look Now
Stories
An NYRB Original
Daphne du Maurier wrote some of the most compelling and creepy novels of the twentieth century. In books like Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn she transformed the small dramas of everyday life—love, grief, jealousy—into the stuff of nightmares. Less known, though no less powerful, are her short stories, in which she gave free rein to her imagination in narratives of unflagging suspense.
Patrick McGrath's revelatory new selection of du Maurier's stories shows her at her most chilling and most psychologically astute: a dead child reappears in the alleyways of Venice; routine eye surgery reveals the beast within to a meek housewife; nature revolts against man's abuse by turning a benign species into an annihilating force; a dalliance with a beautiful stranger offers something more dangerous than a broken heart. McGrath draws on the whole of du Maurier's long career and includes surprising discoveries together with famous stories like "The Birds." Don't Look Now is a perfect introduction to a peerless storyteller.
Reviews
Don't Look Now is a stunning collection of du Maurier's particular brand of intricately plotted story. The mesmerizing title story was faithfully adapted by Nicholas Roeg, and the volume also includes the creepily riveting tale "The Birds,"... filmed by Alfred Hitchcock.
— The Atlantic
Daphne du Maurier's genius lay in her plots, which she spun with astounding originality and ease. Her novel Rebecca, her short stories 'The Birds,' 'Don't Look Now,' 'The Blue Lenses' and dozens more have an effectiveness that make them seem almost traditional, belonging not to any one author but to the imagination of the world.
— Albert Manguel
Her tales of the macabre are among the best of their genre.
— Michael Dirda
A crackerjack raconteuse…she takes the reader by the icy hand and leads him behind the curtain to view the characters on their ways to their own breaking points.
— The Saturday Review
Du Maurier served up more sinister fare than the Brontës…
— The New York Times Book Review
Sign up for our free email newsletters for updates and special offers on NYRB books.
|
Format: Paperback
Retail Price: $15.95
Price: $11.96 (25% off)
Oct 28, 2008
368 pages
ISBN: 1590172884
9781590172889
Literature in English
NYRB Classics
 Find us on Facebook
 Follow us on Twitter
 Share
|
