Rule Britannia: Author Daphne du Maurier and More

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Authors, book, culture, Daphne du Maurier, Diane Whitebay typography, Drugs, dumaurier.org, education, EU politics, film, Ingrid Beckman jacket painting, literature, movies, Novels, Paul Bacon dust jacket design, people, politics, premonitory literature, Rule Britannia book title, The Birds 1963 movie, The House on the Strand book title, Undercurrents in society, United Kingdom, Will the United Kingdom leave the EU soon?, writers, writing

At hand are two interesting novels, The House on the Strand and Rule Britannia  by Daphne du Maurier. Both books are perhaps a premonition of the coming days ahead in “the future”, or “spot on”, echoing the times when they were written. Its almost uncanny how some authors, and I guess that is one of the reasons they are liked so much, tap into the what I would call the “undercurrent” of what it is that rumors throughout society.

The House on the Strand featured above was published in this book club edition in 1969 by Doubleday & Co., Publishers. I really do like the very simple painting on the cover.The story is woven around drugs, then and now, of a more dangerous kind, a continuous preoccupation of this “New Age”.

Daphne Du Maurier was an extremely popular author, but I never read any of her work with the excuse that I was not “into novels”. Much less did I know that she was the author of a great number of books rewritten for the big screen though I had certainly seen a number of them. (the list below is from  dumaurier.org as is the first link in our post)

TV, Video’s & Films
Jamaica Inn (1939)	Starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara	Mayflower Directed by Alfred Hitchcock	108 min. B/W
Rebecca (1940)	Starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontain	Alfred Hitchcock’s Academy Award winning adaptation.	125 min. B/W
Frenchman’s Creek (1944)	Starring Joan Fontaine, Basil Rathbone, and Nigel Bruce	Paramount Directed by Mitchell Leisen	110 min. color
Hungry Hill (1945)		G.F.D./Sydney Box Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
The Years Between (1947)		G.F.D./Sydney Box Directed by Compton Bennett
My Cousin Rachel (1952)	Starring Richard Burton and Olivia DeHavilland	20th Century Fox Directed by Henry Koster	98 min. B/W
The Scapegoat (1959)	Starring Alec Guiness and Bette Davis	M.G.M. Directed by Robert Hamer	B/W
The Birds (1963)	Starring Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Tippi Hedren, and Suzanne Pleschette	Universal Studios Directed by Alfred Hitchcock	119 min. color
Don’t Look Now (1973)	Starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie	British Lion Directed by Nicolas Roeg	110 min. color
Vanishing Cornwall (1971)		Directed by Christian Browning
The Make Believe World of Daphne du Maurier (1977)	A rare interview of Dame Daphne at Kilmarth, by Cliff Michelmore	Banner Pictures Ltd, London	38 min. color
Rebecca (1978)	Starring Jeremy Brett, Joanna David, and Anna Massey	BBC-TV series Directed by Simon Langston	205 min. color
Jamaica Inn (1985)	Starring Patrick McGoohan, Jane Seymour, and John McEnery	Harlech TV Directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark	187 min. color
My Cousin Rachel (1982)	Starring Geraldine Chaplin and Christopher Guard	A BBC TV Production in association with Twentieth Century Fox	177 min. color
The Breakthrough (aka The Lifeforce Experiment)	Starring Donald Sutherland	TV Produced by World International Network/Astral Film Enterprises/Screen Partners Directed by Piers Haggard	color
The Birds II: Land’s End (1994)	Starring Tippi Hedren, Brad Johnson II, Chelsea Field, and James Naughton	TV Directed by Rick Rosenthal	87 min. color
Rebecca (1996)	Starring Charles Dance, Diana Rigg, Geraldine James, Jean Anderson, Emilia Fox and Faye Dunaway	A Portman Production for Carlton UK Television in association with WGBH/Boston and Tele-Munchen	180 min. color

Who has not seen Alfred Hitchcock’s master work THE BIRDS? I became even more interested in the author’s work when this book came to hand.

This book with the fabulous dust jacket by Paul Bacon, whose work is always elegant and very understated but surprisingly fresh, was published in 1974. This book is uncanny in the basic plot, soon a reality perhaps with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union? That is if there is still a Kingdom left like if there is still an “American New York” left, or and you can fill in the blank and see the cracks in the political landscape appearing, slowly devouring the crust of aging Empires that were already long gone before the Scotts woke up and the continuous tribalisation of the “Modern Multi Culti Society”. Resist, resist resist the old Dame spoke for better or for worse Britannia ruled the waves.

United States troops in Africa, but not in the real fight against ISIS. Anything else we have to defend? Cornwall perhaps? This book could have had the alternative subtitle: New World Order Occupied Territory. God Bless and have a pint!