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Daphne Du Maurier: A Daughter's Memoir
  

Daphne Du Maurier: A Daughter's Memoir (Paperback)

by Flavia Leng (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Mainstream Publishing; New edition edition (16 April 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1851587209
  • ISBN-13: 978-1851587209
  • Product Dimensions: 21 x 14 x 1.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 961,430 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Since the revelations of Margaret Forster's biography of Daphne du Maurier, it has been difficult to look at du Maurier in the light in which she wished to be seen. We now know of her depressions and self-contempt, of the extent to which her career and her obsession with being a perfect wife and mother were a way of proving to her dead father that she was worthy of him. To her children, of course, she hardly seemed driven at all, and this is an attractive memoir because it makes clear to us that what was won at so terrible a cost was at least some sort of victory. The sheer ordinariness of Flavia Lang's sense of her mother is a tribute of a kind --a happiness so successfully mimicked has its own reality. Of course there are ironies here--Mrs. Lang manages to maintain a blissful naivete about her mother's relationship with Gertrude Lawrence, whose sudden death broke her heart. And the same innocence or reticence applies to the Battle of Arnhem, and the way it destroyed her father's career; things were kept from the children, and the children have grown up, fairly charmingly, to keep them from themselves.--Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

In this memoir the author paints a portrait of her mother, Daphne du Maurier. She presents an account of an unusual and often lonely childhood spent in London and in Cornwall at her mother's beloved house, Menabilly. Family friends included Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward, and Nelson and Ellen Doubleday. However at the centre of this story is Daphne du Maurier herself. This book reveals a writer who had a deep attachment to Cornwall, where she put down her roots and found inspiration for her novels, and who spent much of her life as a recluse, withdrawn not only from the outside world but also from members of her own family. A picture emerges of a woman who lived in a world of her own creation that was beyond the comprehension of those around her. In this memoir the author paints a portrait of her mother, Daphne du Maurier. She presents an account of an unusual and often lonely childhood spent in London and Cornwall, where family friends and guests included Gertrude Lawrence and Noel Coward.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A moving, readable tribute to Du Maurier, 13 Dec 2003
By S. BARRATT "Currer Bell" (YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
As the author is the daughter of famous novelist Daphne Du Maurier, you know you are going to get warts and all from someone that has known her subject all her life. Leng writes with so much truth and heart its very moving in places and you feel yourself transported in the rooms of Menabilly, the house they lived in at Cornwall. Superb photos illustrate the book showing Daphne with her three children, they are very personal and feel you are a friend looking at them and listening to Leng tell you all about her mother and her tempestuos relationships with the people around her. A wonderful book to have, that gives you an emotional insight to a woman and her family.
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8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read!, 12 Feb 2001
This was lovelly and so heartfelt. I cried continuously throughout the book.

A wonderful ending also.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Bone chilling cold, ghosts & rats in the loft., 31 Dec 2009
By Melcisadeck (Manchester. UK) - See all my reviews
The book is well written and quite humourous in parts,ie the part about the dentist who was rather rough on Flavia and ended up in a crocodile's toothy jaw whilst on Safari in Africa . I do not know if it was Flavia Leng's intention, but both mother and father come across as rather unsympathetic characters. The father seems remote and ill tempered and Dapne du Maurier appears ghost like through the whole narrative , somewhat uninterested in her daughter and making some really harsh comments on her daughter's looks as compared to her sister. It is strange that a love of Cornwall did not extend to local Cornish people , as the children of Daphne were forbidden to play with the locals whom they called 'honks', thier derogatory name for the 'lower orders'.
As the another commentator says this is a' warts and all' memoir. But if you are expecting some deep insights in the character of Daphne du Maurier, forget it, this is a sketch, a daughter's impression.
Any mistique about Menabilly , the famous house of the author in Cornwall , has been dispelled, by the descriptions of the bone chilling cold the gangs of rats that lived in the lofts of the old mansion.
That said it was an excellent Christmas read!
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