Im re reading Rebecca the most famous work by Daphne Du Maurier. I've read almost all her books and they vary a good deal in quality.
Rebecca is loosely based on Jane Eyre, a Gothic novel where a young girl marries an older man who seems to have something sinister in his past.
The heroine is famously not named in the book. Du Maurier did not give her a name which emphasises her shyness and lack of a strong personality. Mrs De Winter is only 19 or so and when the novel opens she's living in Monte Carlo as the companion of a rich American woman Mrs Van Hopper. Mrs Van Hopper is something of a caricature American, stupid, vulgar and not very nice. Mrs De Winter comes from a "good" middle class family but is left alone after the death of her parents and has to earn her own living. She is so shy and awkward that she dislikes having so socialise with her boss's friends and feels that they patronise her. She is not very happy in her job, feeling also that because of her lack of wealth, even the hotel servants think poorly of her. She wishes that she was older and more confident.
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