Daphne du Maurier: Mysteries and Gardens in Literary Blooms

May 13, 1907

On this day, we celebrate the birth of the bewitching English author and playwright Daphne du Maurier (“Mor-ee-aya”), a lady of London lineage and a middle daughter in a celebrated family of bohemian artists.

Her father, a favored actor in the court of James Barrie—the very mind behind Peter Pan—no doubt seeded her childhood with theatrical whispers and a vivid imagination.

Daphne’s tales have left an indelible mark on the world of cinema, notably inspiring Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces, with her novels Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and short story The Birds captivating audiences anew.

The novel Rebecca, published in 1938, has bewitched readers for decades and never once slipped out of print. Even during the pandemic’s quiet hours, Netflix revived Rebecca’s legacy in a splendid rendition starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Within Rebecca, Daphne paints the estate of Manderley as a place where gardens tell their own secrets.

She writes of

“the beautiful azaleas that grow on the estate… used to make a perfume for its late mistress.”

Yet, grower’s wisdom whispers that her fragrant tribute is likely artistic license, since most evergreen azaleas are modest of scent—though their native deciduous cousins can offer sweeter bouquets.

Early in the novel, her narrator casts a haunting vision of Manderley’s wild garden:

“I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done.

The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard thing that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin.

A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners.”

Indeed, du Maurier’s love of flowers often bloomed throughout her family life, with her daughters recalling her ever-present joy in flower arranging and filling their home with floral beauty.

Her collection Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories unveils a garden of secrets and stillness, observed in these words:

“As soon as he had disappeared Deborah made for the trees fringing the lawn, and once in the shrouded wood felt herself safe…

It was very quiet. The woods were made for secrecy. They did not recognize her as the garden did."

In The King’s General, gardens twist from tranquil beauty to subtle menace:

“I was a tiny child again at Radford, my uncle’s home, and he was walking me through the glass-houses in the gardens.

There was one flower, an orchid, that grew alone; it was the color of pale ivory, with one little vein of crimson running through the petals.

The scent filled the house, honeyed, and sickly sweet.

It was the loveliest flower I had ever seen.

I stretched out my hand to stroke the soft velvet sheen, and swiftly my uncle pulled me by the shoulder.

‘Don’t touch it, child. The stem is poisonous.”

And for a shift of tone, her witty The Parasites offers a sharp commentary on the trials of sending flowers alongside telegrams, likening the whole affair to a dreadful operation:

“Most people would send their letters and telegrams to the Haymarket. The flowers too.

When you came to think of it the whole business was horribly like having an operation.

The telegrams, the flowers.

And the long hours of waiting.”

For lovers of mystery, gardens, and the poignantly poetic, Daphne du Maurier remains a master guide.

And for those who wish to stroll her stories once more, the Netflix adaptation of Rebecca awaits your company.