![]() Rebecca is due Maurier’s masterpiece and a sublime example of the narrative novel as an artistic form. Complementing these main illustrations is a two page monochrome title spread design that is an enjoyable departure from the more traditional frontispiece and title page layout. Not merely eye candy, then, these are pictures that help us connect with the drama of du Maurier’s fiction. One thing I quite enjoyed about these illustrations is the selection of key narrative moments that have been brought to life with just the right balance of context and intimacy. There are six full-page colour images that have a painterly style with a slightly ephemeral quality that I would often associate with children’s fiction. The only real embellishments are the typographic ornaments that accompany each chapter numeral. ![]() The text is set in Jenson to a design whose simplicity is a nice fit for the book’s early 20th century setting. Opening the sewn binding (with red endbands), we have red endpapers and then 432 pages of Folio Society’s standard Abbey Wove paper. Setting the title diagonally across the spine is a nice and visually interesting touch. This flower motif, which reflects a literary motif from the novel, wraps onto the spine, which is also blocked with the title and author’s name. Inside is a book bound in navy blue cloth blocked with a design featuring that same monogram and a cluster of red and gold rhododendrons. Here I take a look at what makes this edition one of Folio’s best bangs-for-your-buck.Įschewing the common plain slipcase, the book arrives in a bold red case printed in blue with an “R de W” monogram to quite a stylish design. The binding depicts Rebecca’s monogram, a bold ’R’ overshadowing a smaller ’de W’, a symbol of Rebecca’s charisma and her dominion over the second Mrs de Winter.The Folio Society’s 2017 edition of Daphne du Maurier‘s Rebecca fits squarely in their standard edition category (current price: £47.95), but feels like it could be at home among their more premium offerings. Smith’s illustrations for this edition play with the inscrutable nature of Du Maurier’ two heroines, never fully revealing the anonymous narrator nor the bewitching, enigmatic Rebecca. With its subtle layers of ambiguity and concealment, Rebecca, as Dunmore writes, is a ’mesmerising novel which reveals more on each reading’. Increasingly isolated by her husband’s erratic moods, and the sinister manipulations of Mrs Danvers, the second Mrs de Winter ventures ever deeper into Manderley’s brooding secrets. In death as in life, Rebecca holds sway over Manderley and all who knew her, from the tormented and malevolent housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, to the failing mother-in-law who cries out her name. Embodying everything that her successor lacks, Rebecca is held up as a peerless, charismatic beauty whose allure is only heightened by her tragic demise. But, plagued by feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, she becomes obsessed with the image of Maxim’s deceased first wife, Rebecca. For this gauche girl, life begins when the handsome and elusive Maxim de Winter rescues her from an odious employer and makes her his wife and mistress of Manderley, his legendary ancestral home. ![]() Meek and malleable but with a compelling narrative voice, Rebecca’s unreliable narrator is a masterly creation, artfully wielded by the author to beguile and disorientate the reader. ‘A mesmerising novel which reveals more on each reading’ Introducer Helen Dunmore discusses how this extraordinary psychological thriller, with its echoes of Jane Eyre, is also a searing exploration of patriarchy, retribution, female sexuality and class prejudice. This edition of Daphne du Maurier’s macabre masterpiece features a bold cover design and atmospheric colour and black and white images by D. An immediate success on its release, Rebecca gripped readers with its drama, romance and mystery, and was soon adapted for film by Alfred Hitchcock.
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