My Cousin Rachel
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First published in 1951, Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel is a tale of suspicion, desire and uncertain motives set against the rugged beauty of the Cornish coast. Philip Ashley, raised by his older cousin Ambrose on a secluded estate, has his settled world disturbed when Ambrose travels to Italy, marries their distant cousin Rachel, and dies under mysterious circumstances. When Rachel arrives in Cornwall, Philip finds himself torn between his suspicions of her and an attraction he can neither explain nor resist.
Narrated by Philip, whose youth and inexperience complicate his account, the novel draws its tension from the uneasy distance between what is known and what is merely believed. Du Maurier evokes the atmosphere of the country-house novel while examining jealousy, inheritance, gender and the dangerous authority of desire. Following the success of Rebecca, she returned to Cornwall and to the Gothic art of making uncertainty itself a source of dread, leaving readers to question how much they can trust the narrator—or their own judgement.
From the book
“They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days. Not any more though.”
— Daphne du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel
On My Cousin Rachel
“A gifted craftsman and spinner of yarns, Daphne du Maurier excels herself.”
— Kirkus Reviews, 1951