Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again... Working as a lady's companion, the (nameless) heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her... read more
While working as the companion to a rich American woman vacationing on the French Riviera, the narrator becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, Maximilian (Maxim) de Winter, a 40-something widower. After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him and, after the wedding and... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
“Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.”Mrs. de Winter
“The papers were full of it of course. They say he never talks about it, never mentions her name. She was drowned you know, in a bay near Manderley ...”Mrs. Van Hopper
“If only there could be an invention...that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”Mrs. de Winter
“I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.”Mrs. de Winter
“Though two nights only have been spent beneath a roof, yet we leave something of ourselves behind. Nothing material, not a hairpin on a dressing table, not an empty bottle of aspirin tablets, not a handkerchief beneath a pillow, but something indefinable, a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood.”Mrs. de Winter
“Come and see us if you feel like it,' she said. 'I always expect people to ask themselves. Life is too short to send out invitations.”Beatrice
“That's what I do to Jasper," I thought. "I'm being like Jasper now, leaning against him. He pats me now and again, when he remembers, and I'm pleased, I get closer to him for a moment. He likes me in the way I like Jasper.”Mrs. de Winter
“The word lingered in the air once I had uttered it, Dancing before me, and because he received it silently, making no comment, the word magnified itself into something hideous and appalling, a forbidden word, unnatural to the tongue. And I could not call it back, it could never be unsaid.”Mrs. de Winter
“If I told you I was thinking about Surrey and Middlesex, I was thinking about Surrey and Middlesex. Men are simpler than you imagine, my sweet child. But what goes in the twisted tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.”Maxim de Winter
“My lad is different altogether. No earthly use at games. Always writing poetry. I suppose he'll grow out of it.”Colonel Julyan
“We all of us have our particular devil who rides with us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end. We have conquered ours, or so we believe.”Mrs. de Winter
Chapters 1-27
While this book can be a little dark, it is eminently accessible. It would be a great way to introduce a young reader to the classics. I read it when I was twelve, and it has been a favorite ever since.
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