Description
The du Mauriers — talent, glamour, and secrets. Daphne du Maurier gave the world Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and The Birds; her sisters Angela and Jeanne were writers and artists in their own right. Jane Dunn’s group biography explores all three — and the extraordinary theatrical family that produced them.
From a grandfather who was the most famous actor-manager of his day to the bohemian wilds of Cornwall, Dunn traces the rivalries, romances, and fierce creativity that bound the sisters: Daphne’s complicated private life, explored here with sensitivity and new research; Angela’s writing career in a famous sister’s shadow; Jeanne’s painting. It is a story about family as fate — and about three women negotiating fame, art, and identity on very different terms.
Lush, intelligent, and wonderfully readable, this is literary biography at its most enjoyable — perfect for du Maurier devotees, Anglophiles, and anyone fascinated by creative families.
Everyone knows Daphne du Maurier — the celebrated novelist behind Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and The Birds. But Daphne was one of three remarkable sisters, and until now, Angela and Jeanne have lived in her formidable shadow. In Daphne du Maurier and her Sisters (HarperCollins, 2013), acclaimed biographer Jane Dunn brings all three gloriously to life.
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nAngela — ‘Piffy’ — the eldest, was a novelist in her own right whose career was cruelly eclipsed. Daphne — ‘Bing’ — became one of Britain’s best-loved writers, famous, complicated, and fiercely private. Jeanne — ‘Bird’ — the youngest, was a gifted painter who chose a quieter life. Drawing on letters, diaries, and family papers, Dunn traces their intertwined lives through two world wars, scandalous love affairs, artistic triumphs, and the particular intensity of sisterhood.
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nThe result is far more than a literary biography: it is a vivid portrait of an extraordinary family and a vanished era of English cultural life. Dunn — herself the author of acclaimed biographies of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell — writes with warmth, wit, and novelistic flair.
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nFor du Maurier devotees and newcomers alike, this is essential reading: the hidden lives of Piffy, Bird, and Bing, finally told in full.
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