British author Daphne du Maurier published her first novel in 1931. From that point on, she produced a variety of novels, short stories, and non-fiction books. This lesson will look at her life and works. It will also define Gothic literature. Author Frank Baker believed that du Maurier had plagiarised his novel The Birds in her short story "The Birds. Du Maurier had been working as a reader for Baker's publisher Peter Davies at the time he submitted the book. The Daphne du Maurier Companion, edited by Helen Taylor, includes Taylor's claims that du Maurier confessed to her in 1965 that she had had an incestuous relationship with her father and that he had been a violent alcoholic. Jamaica Inn was first published in 1936. It was later made into a film, also called Jamaica Inn, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was inspired by du Maurier's 1930 stay at the real Jamaica Inn, which still exists and is a pub in the middle of Bodmin Moor. In this novel, Mary Yellan comes to live at Jamaica Inn with her aunt and uncle after the death of her widowed mother. Mary comes to the inn expecting to be reunited with the kind, carefree aunt she met once as a young child. However, Mary arrives to find Jamaica Inn a cold, foreboding place that has earned a reputation fitting to the abusive man who has come to be its landlord. Mary almost immediately begins plotting an escape for herself and her aunt, but quickly realizes she does not know whom she can trust… You can listen online to free English audiobook “Jamaica Inn” by Daphne du Maurier on our website.
