 First edition | |
| Author | Daphne du Maurier |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Keith Richens [1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Victor Gollancz Ltd [2] |
Publication date | 1972 [2] |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 318 [2] |
| ISBN | 0-575-01598-5 |
Rule Britannia is Daphne du Maurier's last novel, [3] published in 1972 by Victor Gollancz. [2] The novel is set in a fictional near future in which the UK's recent withdrawal from the EEC has brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy. [4]
Emma, 20, lives with her elderly grandmother, Mad (short for Madam), a famous retired actress, in the small village of Poldrea in Cornwall. They share a large house near the coast with Mad's six ‘maladjusted’ adopted sons who range in age from 3 to 18. One morning, Emma wakes to the sound of aeroplanes overhead. An American warship has anchored in the bay and United States Marines are marching over the fields. They are trigger-happy, and one of them shoots and kills a local farmer's dog.
After some hours of civil confusion, a television announcement is made by the prime minister: due to recent economic and military failures on the continent, the UK and the USA have joined together as a single nation, to be called USUK. The new government of USUK declares a state of emergency, institutes roadblocks, and cuts local telephone and postal communication. To Mad and her family the US Marines appear less like invited friends than a hostile invading force.
Andy, 12, one of Mad's adopted boys who has an obsession with bows and arrows and a hazy understanding of the concepts of right and wrong, shoots and kills one of the Marines. Mad, Emma and some of the locals cover up the death, and throw the body over the cliff into the sea. It is not found for several days, and in the absence of a culprit the military authorities crack down on the local population by cutting food, electricity and water supplies, and arresting and taking into custody all the local men and youths.
Mad encourages the local farmers to an act of civil disobedience in which huge piles of rotting manure are dumped in front of the local pub where the American military authorities have arranged their thanksgiving celebrations. Shortly afterwards, there is a huge explosion which sinks the warship in the bay. Nobody knows the cause, but in a televised speech the prime minister hints of sabotage "by unknown agents hostile to USUK”.
Mad and her family retreat to their cellar, where they subsist for several days on apples and beetroot, and water from a re-opened well. Early one morning, Emma and the boys are woken by aircraft and what appears to be gunfire, explosions and depth charges, while Mad sleeps on. Power has been restored, and a television announcer states that the sinking of the warship may have been caused by torpedo action. In any event, the security regulations have been relaxed, and the Marines are to leave the local area. A stream of helicopters flies overhead, leaving Cornwall.
The local doctor arrives in his Land Rover. Emma notices Mad standing in welcome at her porch, but when she realises that nobody else can see her she tells the doctor that he had better go down into the basement, where Mad has been asleep for a very long time. The novel concludes with the helicopters still flying eastward into the sun.
The book is dedicated to the actress Gladys Cooper, who died in 1971. Cooper had been one of the leading ladies of Daphne's father, the actor and impresario Gerald du Maurier. [5]
Du Maurier started work on the novel early in 1972, following up an idea she had had for "a funny novel … mocking everything". It was to be "a mockup of what this country may be like in the mid-seventies”, and on its completion she was sure that she had pulled off a fast and funny piece of satire that would be "popular autumn reading". [6]
Reviewers did not share the author's opinion of her work, and most notices were unenthusiastic. There was general consensus that, at best, the novel was pedestrian and, at worst, it was plain silly. Du Maurier's biographer, Margaret Forster, called it in 1993 "the poorest novel she ever wrote". [6]
Ella Westland, in her introduction to the 2004 Virago reprint, called the tone of the book "mocking" – shifting from the funny and farcical to the bleak and bizarre. Du Maurier's publishers were worried by the implausible plot, and it bemused many of her readers. Yet, Westland said, the novel is held together by its very absurdity. She noted that the author had known the story of Peter Pan since early childhood, her father Gerald du Maurier having regularly played Captain Hook on stage since before Daphne was born, and she held that the novel can be read as “Peter Pan meets the Marines, with Emma playing Wendy to Mad’s Peter Pan”. Mad's boys are the six Lost Boys adopted by the Darlings. But she considered that du Maurier had put more of her own character into Mad than she had realised. [5]
Westland suggested that du Maurier's motive in writing the book was to explore her own feelings about the Britain that her grandchildren would inherit. She hated the superior attitude of London, and the crass interventions from up-country. In the novel she tried to give Cornwall back to the Cornish and let them defend their own land. [5]
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was George du Maurier, a writer and cartoonist.
Margaret Forster was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic, best known for the 1965 novel Georgy Girl, made into a successful film of the same name, which inspired a hit song by The Seekers. Other successes were a 2003 novel, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and her memoirs Hidden Lives and Precious Lives.
Rebecca is a 1938 Gothic novel written by English author Daphne du Maurier. The novel depicts an unnamed young woman who impetuously marries a wealthy widower, before discovering that both he and his household are haunted by the memory of his late first wife, the title character.
My Cousin Rachel is a 1952 American romantic mystery film directed by Henry Koster and starring Olivia de Havilland, Richard Burton, Audrey Dalton, Ronald Squire, George Dolenz and John Sutton. The film is based on the 1951 novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier.
Peter Llewelyn Davies was the middle of five sons of Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, one of the Llewelyn Davies boys befriended and later informally adopted by J. M. Barrie. Barrie publicly identified him as the source of the name for the title character in his 1904 play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier was an English actor and manager. He was the son of author George du Maurier and his wife, Emma Wightwick, and the brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1903, he married the actress Muriel Beaumont, with whom he had three daughters: writers Angela du Maurier (1904–2002) and Dame Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989), and painter Jeanne du Maurier (1911–1997). His popularity was due to his subtle and naturalistic acting: a "delicately realistic style of acting that sought to suggest rather than to state the deeper emotions". His Times obituary said of his career: "His parentage assured him of engagements in the best of company to begin with; but it was his own talent that took advantage of them."
Sylvia Llewelyn Davies was the mother of the boys who were the inspiration for the stories of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. She was the daughter of cartoonist and writer George du Maurier and his wife Emma Wightwick, the elder sister to actor Gerald du Maurier, the aunt of novelists Angela and Daphne du Maurier, and a great-granddaughter of Mary Anne Clarke, royal mistress of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany.
Not After Midnight, and other stories is a 1971 collection of five long stories by Daphne du Maurier. It was first published in Britain by Gollancz, and in America by Doubleday under the title Don't Look Now. In 1973 it was re-published in the UK by Harmondsworth (Penguin) as Don't Look Now, and other stories.
The Parasites is a novel by Daphne du Maurier, first published in 1949. The novel follows an emotionally entangled bohemian family, the Delaneys.
The Davies boys were the inspiration for the stories of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, in which several of the characters were named after them. They were the sons of Sylvia (1866–1910) and Arthur Llewelyn Davies (1863–1907). Their mother was a daughter of French-born cartoonist and writer George du Maurier and sister of actor Gerald du Maurier, whose daughter was author Daphne du Maurier. Their father was a son of preacher John Llewelyn Davies, and brother of suffragist Margaret Llewelyn Davies.
The House on the Strand is a novel by Daphne du Maurier, first published in the UK in 1969 by Victor Gollancz, with a jacket illustration by her daughter, Flavia Tower. The US edition was published by Doubleday.
Bodinnick is a riverside village in south-east Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. According to the Post Office the population of the 2011 Census was included in the civil parish of Lanteglos-by-Fowey. It is a fishing village situated on the east bank of the River Fowey opposite the town of Fowey, also on the banks of the Fowey River. The ferry crossing is from Fowey to Bodinnick and the "Old Ferry Inn" is located on its bank glorified as "in the heart of Du Maurier country". This ferry terminal is said to have existed since the 13th century.
The Loving Spirit was the first novel of Daphne du Maurier and was published in 1931 by William Heinemann. The book takes its name from a line in the poem "Self-Interrogation" by Emily Brontë.
Muriel Beaumont, Lady du Maurier was an English stage actress from 1898 until retiring in 1910. She was the wife of the actor and manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and mother of the writers Angela du Maurier and Daphne du Maurier and artist Jeanne du Maurier.
Angela Busson du Maurier was an English actress and novelist who also wrote two volumes of autobiography, It's Only the Sister (1951) and Old Maids Remember (1965). Her sister was the novelist Daphne du Maurier, and her grandfather was George du Maurier, a writer and cartoonist.
The Breaking Point is a collection of eight short stories by Daphne du Maurier first published in 1959 by Victor Gollancz in the UK and Doubleday in the US. It has also been published under the title The Blue Lenses and Other Stories. The stories were written at a time when du Maurier herself came close to a severe nervous breakdown and reflect her own psychological stress. Du Maurier herself acknowledged she had come close to madness immediately before she wrote them; and they were part of her cure – "the means by which she wrote herself back to sanity". The original book had illustrations before each story by Margot Tomes.
The King's General is a novel, published in 1946, by English author and playwright Daphne du Maurier.
Francis Baker was a British writer of novels and short stories, mainly on fantastic or supernatural themes. He was also an actor, musician and television scriptwriter. His best-known works are his novels, The Birds (1936) and Miss Hargreaves (1940), and his memoir, I Follow But Myself (1968).
Jeanne du Maurier was an English artist. She was the third daughter of Sir Gerald du Maurier and Muriel Beaumont, and sister of writers Daphne and Angela du Maurier.
Daphne is a 2007 British biographical drama film written by Amy Jenkins and directed by Clare Beavan. The film is based on the authorised biography, Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller by Margaret Forster. It stars Geraldine Somerville, Elizabeth McGovern and Janet McTeer. It premiered on BBC Two on 12 May 2007. It was filmed on location in London, Devon and Cornwall, where du Maurier spent much of her life and most of her works are set.
