Daphne
A Novel
Picardie, Justine
Hardcover
List Price: $25.99
booksXYZ price: $17.93
$0.90 of your order (5%) will be donated to the school of your choice.
VIEW MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS ONE
Submit a book review
BOOK SYNOPSIS
A haunting novel that illuminates the true story of Daphne du Mauriers fascination with the Brontës: a tale of madness, theft, romance, and literary archaeology.
Drawing on Justine Picardies own extensive research into Daphne du Mauriers obsession with the Brontës and the scandal that has haunted the Brontë estate, Daphne is a marvelous story of literary fascination and possession; of stolen manuscripts and forged signatures; of love lost and love found; of the way into imaginary worlds, and the way out again. Written in three entwined parts, the novel follows Daphne du Maurier herself, the beautiful, tomboyish, passionate author of the enormously popular Gothic novel Rebecca, at fifty and on the verge of madness; John Alexander Symington, eminent editor and curator of the Brontës manuscripts, who by 1957 had been dismissed from the Brontë Parsonage Museum in disgrace, and who became Daphnes correspondent; and a nameless modern researcher on the trail of Daphne, Rebecca, Alexander Symington, and the Brontës. Haunting and gorgeously written, Daphne is a breathtaking novel that finally tells, in the most imaginative of ways, what Brontë biographer Juliet Barker has called the last great untold Brontë storyand perhaps the most intriguing.
AUTHOR BIO
Justine Picardie is a journalist, novelist, and editor. She is the author of My Mothers Wedding Dress, If the Spirit Moves You, and Wish I May, and the co-writer or editor of several others. She was formerly the features editor of British Vogue and editor of the Observer magazine. She lives in London.
BOOK REVIEWS
Like a du Maurier novel, mystery and gothic plotting make the novel a pageturner...A novel for anyone who loves novels.Booklist Merging fact and fiction, all three narratives come together brilliantly in the end.More magazineAn absolute gem of a novel. Well-researched...sure to send readers scurrying back to all those books they should have read in college. [Daphne] will be a hit with fans of du Maurier, the Brontës, and British fiction generally as well as the avid bibliophile. An excellent book club selection.Library Journal"A tantalising literary mystery... Effortlessly overlaying todays London, Yorkshire and Cornwall with their 1950s incarnations, this novel draws you in to its fraught but passionate world as thoroughly as one of Daphnes own."The Financial Times (UK/US)Daphne is a compulsively readable novel. It merges fact and fiction, the present and the past, in a near-flawless construct that weaves together Brontë and du Maurier fiction and family history colliding in Daphnes writing of her biography of Branwell Brontë. The Spectator (UK) "This glorious novel... is a divine treat for lovers of literary mysteries."The Times of London (UK)Clever and originalThe Evening Standard (UK)An intelligent, absorbing mystery story, a real tour de force all bookworms will love. Daily Mail (UK)In a story deserving of the great Daphne herself, Picardie has constructed a fiction based on truthdu Maurier's writing of her biography of Branwell Bronte. Picardie explores literary possession and attribution and sympathetically portrays Daphne's strained marriage and the breakdown of the modern day narrator's relationship. The shadow of Rebecca is still there haunting her creator and Picardie's narrator. Bloomsbury quite rightly sees this as a February lead, but I'd add that its a huge potential best seller; a hugely satisfying can't-put-it-down read.Publishing News (UK)
FOR RELATED BOOKS
Fiction Books :: General Books
Fiction Books :: Historical Books
Fiction Books :: Biographical Books
MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 159691341X
ISBN(13-digit): 9781596913417
Dewey Decimal: 823/.92
Library of Congress: 2008014694
Book Publisher: St Martins Pr
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 405
If you like this book, you may also enjoy:
 | |
 | |
 | |
| Fiela's Child | |
Mister B. Gone | |
Cocktails for Three | |
| Matthee, Dalene | |
Barker, Clive/ Bradley, Doug (NRT) | |
Wickham, Madeleine/ Kellgren, Katherine (NRT) | |
