The Shores. A Novel about the Du Maurier Family

Daphne Du Maurier published her fictionalized family history in 1937 at the age of thirty. The writer was on the brink of fame: her novel «Jamaica Inn» had already been released, and just a year later «Rebecca&, a global bestseller,... would be published. Immersing herself in the atmosphere of nineteenth-century Europe, the writer recreates the life of her Anglo-French ancestors—from her great-great-grandmother, the mistress of the Duke of York, to her grandfather, the famous novelist and artist George Du Maurier. «The history is full of turbulent events and dire twists of fate—here a missing husband, there a scandal and legal proceedings—but all are presented in the form of a romantic comedy and are incredibly engaging,» as stated in the preface to the English edition. Daphne Du Maurier always eagerly explored the characters and fates of people, the mysterious threads that connect the present with the past, invariably discovering «ghosts everywhere—not pale phantoms rattling chains through eternity… creaking floorboards in empty houses, but joyful shadows of the past»...