Daphne Du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier was born in London in 1907 but spent most of her life in Cornwall. She was the daughter of the renowned actor Gerald du Maurier and the granddaughter of cartoonist and writer George du Maurier. She began writing at a very young age. Her first book, "The Loving Spirit," was published in 1931. A year later, she married General Sir Frederick Montague Browning, with whom she had three children. She wrote thirty-four books, including seventeen novels and numerous short stories. Several of her works were adapted into films and television, such as "Jamaica Inn" (1936), which was made into a film by Hitchcock, "Rebecca" (1938), also by Hitchcock, "My Cousin Rachel" (1951), by Henry Koster, "Don't Look Now" (1971), by Nicolas Roeg, among others. In 1969, she was honored with the title of Dame (DBE, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire). She passed away in Cornwall, in Kilmarth, in 1989.