My Cousin Rachel feels like du Maurier’s bid to write a high-pedigree literary classic, steeped in her research of the early Victorian era and echoing something of the wild landscapes and demented sexual obsession of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
(The prospect of of a novelist of du Maurier’s success wanting to be less rather than more popular with a mainstream audience is a problem most other writers would love to have, but never mind). It was also, according to biographer Margaret Forster, a period where du Maurier was pissed off at being pigeonholed as a “mystery writer” and wanted more recognition from critics. My Cousin Rachel was published 13 years later, when du Maurier was at the height of her popularity. Why it’s a classic: Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca, published in 1938, became an international bestseller and made her a literary celebrity almost overnight, with successful film adaptations of Rebecca and her other writings. Tortured by his responsibility for Rachel’s death but still unsure of her true motives, Philip vows never to marry or be with another woman again. Rachel dies after falling from a partially-constructed bridge in the estate gardens, an accident that Philip predicted but failed to warn her about. Philip becomes convinced that Rachel is trying to poison him and may also have killed Ambrose. He falls ill, and is nursed by Rachel, who announces her plans to return to Italy.
He insists that they marry and attempts to strangle her. He drunkenly announces their engagement to his birthday guests, arguing with Rachel who says he misinterpreted her intentions. On the eve of his 25th birthday, he gifts Rachel the estate and the family jewels, and they have sex. Philip becomes obsessed with Rachel, spending money on the estate to impress her, arranging for her to be paid a monthly allowance, and attempting to gift her a valuable family necklace at Christmas. His initial hostility melts away when he meets Rachel, a beautiful, intelligent and witty woman about ten years his senior. He returns to England, taking charge of the estate and is persuaded to receive Rachel as a guest. After receiving a letter from Ambrose describing Rachel as “my torment”, Philip travels to Italy, to discover Ambrose had died and Rachel has departed. When Philip is 24, Ambrose travels to Florence to improve his health, meeting and marrying his cousin Rachel, the recently widowed Contessa Sangalletti. Philip Ashley has been raised since childhood by his elder cousin Ambrose, the owner of a country estate in Cornwall. What it’s about: Cornwall, England, the 1830s. In which I review My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier’s 1951 thriller about a young Victorian aristocrat who becomes obsessed with his cousin Rachel, a widow who may have poisoned her husband.
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