Author | Daphne Du Maurier |
---|---|
Cover artist | Flavia Tower [1] |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Publisher | Victor Gollancz |
Publication date | 1969 |
Media type | |
Pages | 351 |
ISBN | 0-575-00287-5 |
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. [1] [2] The US edition was published by Doubleday.
Like many of du Maurier's novels, The House on the Strand has a supernatural element, exploring the ability to mentally travel back in time and experience historical events at first hand - but not to influence them. It has been called a Gothic tale, "influenced by writers as diverse as Robert Louis Stevenson, Dante, and the psychologist Carl Jung, [3] in which a sinister potion enables the central character to escape the constraints of his dreary married life by travelling back through time". [4] The narrator agrees to test a drug that transports him back to 14th century Cornwall and becomes absorbed in the lives of people he meets there, to the extent that the two worlds he is living in start to merge.
It is set in and around Kilmarth, where Daphne du Maurier lived from 1967, near the village of Tywardreath, which in Cornish means "House on the Strand".
The setting for the story is an ancient Cornish house called Kilmarth, which is based on the house the author had recently bought following the death of her husband. [5]
After giving up his job the narrator, Dick Young, is offered the use of Kilmarth by an old university friend, biophysicist Magnus Lane. Dick reluctantly agrees to act as a test subject for a drug that Magnus has secretly developed. On taking it for the first time, he finds that it enables him to enter into the landscape around him as it existed during the early 14th century. He becomes drawn into the lives of the people he sees there and is soon addicted to the experience. Dick finds himself following Roger, who lives at Kilmarth, acts as steward to Sir Henry Champernoune, and is a secret admirer of the beautiful Isolda, wife of Sir Oliver Carminowe. She has been conducting a secret affair with the brother of Sir Henry's wife, Sir Otto Bodrugan, who is waylaid and killed by Oliver's men.
Each visit corresponds to a key moment in the story of Isolda and Roger. Each time Dick returns to real time he is more confused; throughout the experience he is unable to interact with the couple. Any attempt to do so brings Dick crashing back to the present in a state of nauseated exhaustion. The drug has other dangers in that following Roger means that Dick walks unaware through the modern landscape with all the danger that entails.
Dick's American wife Vita and his young stepsons join him at Kilmarth and are worried by his bizarre behaviour. It is made clear that Dick has no passionate feelings for his wife, does not want the new job in the US she has found for him and has no fatherly affection for her two boys—which makes plausible his increasing desire to escape into the past. Magnus intends to join Dick but is killed in what seems like a bizarre accident or suicide—struck by a train whilst straying onto the local railway track. Dick knows that Magnus was under the influence of the drug; this makes the inquest difficult.
Dick's penultimate trip ends with him attempting to defend Isolda from Sir Henry's vindictive widow Joanna in the 14th century, but in reality attacking Vita. She and her children hide from him and he contacts a doctor who helps to wean him from his addiction to the drug. Dick explains the power of the drug, and is informed by the doctor that analysis has revealed its extremely dangerous nature. However, Dick's addiction is such that he takes the last remaining dose soon after.
Dick's last visit occurs during the Black Death in 1349. A dying Roger confesses his love for Isolda and the fact that she died peacefully from a drug he administered rather than from the plague. After the death of his doppelgänger Roger and the Isolda they both loved, Dick has little incentive to return to the other world, but in any case there is no drug left to allow his passage there. As the book closes, Dick attempts to pick up the phone but suddenly finds he is unable to grip it. Speaking of the novel's unresolved ending, Daphne du Maurier said in an interview: "What about the hero of The House on the Strand? What did it mean when he dropped the telephone at the end of the book? I don’t really know, but I rather think he was going to be paralysed for life. Don’t you?" [6]
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.
Manderley is a fictional estate in Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca, owned by the character Maxim de Winter.
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.
Tywardreath is a small hilltop village on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, about 3 miles (5 km) north west of Fowey. It is located in a sheltered spot overlooking a silted up estuary opposite Par and near the beach of Par Sands. It is on the Saints' Way path.
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.
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 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."
"The Birds" is a horror story by the British writer Daphne du Maurier, first published in her 1952 collection The Apple Tree. The story is set in du Maurier's home county of Cornwall shortly after the end of the Second World War. A farmhand, his family and community come under lethal attack from flocks of birds. By the end of the story, it becomes clear that all of Britain is under aerial assault.
Jamaica Inn is a 1939 British adventure thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1936 novel of the same name. It is the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted. It stars Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara in her first major screen role. It is the last film Hitchcock made in the United Kingdom before he moved to the United States.
My Cousin Rachel is a Gothic novel written by English author Daphne du Maurier, published in 1951. Bearing thematic similarities to her earlier and more famous novel Rebecca, it is a mystery-romance, set primarily on a large estate in Cornwall.
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 cultural calendar of Cornwall is punctuated by numerous historic and community festivals and celebrations. In particular there are strong links between parishes and their patronal feast days. There is also a tradition of holding celebrations associated with tin mining and fishing.
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.
Menabilly is a historic estate on the south coast of Cornwall, England, situated within the parish of Tywardreath on the Gribben peninsula about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Fowey.
The King's General is a novel, published in 1946, by English author and playwright Daphne du Maurier.
Rule Britannia is Daphne du Maurier's last novel, published in 1972 by Victor Gollancz. 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.
Sir Henry de Bodrugan (c.1263–1308) was a Cornish landowner, knight and politician.
Cannon Hall at 14 Cannon Place, Hampstead, London is a grade II* listed building that dates from around 1720. The house is the former home of the actor Gerald du Maurier, his wife Muriel Beaumont, and their three children, the writers Angela du Maurier and Daphne du Maurier and the painter Jeanne 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.