Daphne du Maurier's Books Celebrating Anniversaries in 2025

Each year we like to let you know which of Daphne du Maurier's books are celebrating anniversaries.  It might remind you of books you have forgotten or overlooked, or you might like to read a book during its anniversary year.  We think it is an interesting exercise to carry out.

Sometimes, Daphne's books were published in different years in Britain and the United States, and we will talk about those first.

Gerald: A Portrait is the biography that Daphne du Maurier wrote about her father.  She wrote it very quickly, almost immediately after he had died in April 1934, and the book was published in the UK in November 1934, so it was one of the books we celebrated last year.  However, publication in the US took a little longer, so the US edition is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.

Gerald a Portrait - US first ediiton

Daphne du Maurier's second play, The Years Between, was published in the UK in 1945, so it celebrates its 80th anniversary this year.  It was published in the US in 1946, so we will need to wait a year before celebrating that anniversary. 

The Years Between - UK first acting edition (left) and UK first editon hardback (right)

The Years Between was a major success on the London stage during World War II.  All the action takes place in the library of a country house.  Colonel Wentworth, a Conservative MP, is reported missing in action during the early part of the Second World War.  In his absence, his wife, Diana, is appointed MP in his place.  She falls in love with a close friend and plans to marry him… 

 
Because the story is set in WW2, it rather lost its relevance once peace was restored.  The Years Between is largely forgotten now, but it is a super story and well worth looking back at.  

Following the success of the play, British film director Compton Bennett adapted it into a film starring Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson and Flora Robson.  The film was released in 1946, and it is still possible to watch it on YouTube and to find copies of it on DVD.

The Years Between - DVD

Some rather special and extremely scarce little booklets were published in 1945.  They were all short stories, and they were produced in approximately A5-size magazines, each of which usually contained one or two stories.  They were mainly part of a series called Polybooks, published by Vallancey Press and Todd Publishing, although some of these books by those publishers do not appear to be part of the Polybooks series.  The contents were printed in columns, very much like a newspaper or magazine.  Being small and made of the same material as magazines, they were very ephemeral publications, and this accounts for how scarce they are.  Many will have been thrown away once they had been read.
Daphne du Maurier joined many of the authors of the day by having her short stories published in these series.

  

Daphne's titles published in these little magazines in 1945, so celebrating their 80th anniversary were:
Leading Lady
London and Paris (two stories in one magazine)
Consider the Lilies

Other Daphne du Maurier short stories were published in these magazines in the years surrounding 1945.

We have illustrations for two of the magazines, but we don't have one for Leading Lady.

Early Stories - First edition

Another interesting book is Early Stories, published by Todd Publishing in 1955, so celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.

Paperback books were first introduced in the mid-1930s, and by the early 1950s, they were becoming a popular and inexpensive way of buying a book; however, books were typically printed in hardback first and then, when reprinted, would go into paperback editions.  Penguin was, of course, the first publisher to introduce mass marketing of paperback books.

Early Stories bucked the trend and was published in paperback from the first edition.  This was so unusual that the book actually stated on the front cover that it was an original book and not a reprint.  The publication of Early Stories was an experiment in low-price book -publishing.  The publishers actually explained on the back cover that normally, the book would have been published at the cost of between ten shillings and sixpence (53p) and twelve shillings and sixpence (63p).  However, by publishing the book as a paperback, they were able to charge only two shillings and sixpence (13p), which is a remarkable saving for precisely the same contents.  It is also remarkable to think that in the 1950s, people were paying about 60p for a book, but of course, people's income would have been so much less than today.

Early Stories brought together eighteen of the short stories that Daphne had written during the very earliest days of her writing, between 1927 and 1930.  Most of the stories had been printed in various magazines and journals before being brought together in this first collection of her short fiction.

The Flight of the Falcon - UK first edition

The Flight of the Falcon was published by Victor Gollancz in the UK and Doubleday & Company Inc. in the US in 1965, and so it is celebrating its 60th anniversary.  This fast-paced thriller is set in Italy, mainly in the town of Ruffano, which is a fictionalised version of the city of Urbino, somewhere that Daphne had visited with her son, Kits, so, she was able to draw on her impressions of the city for her novel.

The Flight of the Falcon - US first edition

 
An interesting fact about this novel is that the US edition ends differently from the UK edition.  The story was serialised in Good Housekeeping magazine in America, but the contract insisted that Daphne rewrite the ending.  This new ending was also included in the novel when it was published in book form.

Please note that there are spoilers in this next paragraph…

The British version of The Flight of the Falcon ends with chapter twenty-three, followed by the Rector's obituary after Aldo's death.   But for the American version, Daphne added chapter twenty-four, in which Fabbio, like the good duke Claudio, vows to unite the city and finish the work which Aldo started.  This is then followed by the obituary.  This rather trite ending sits uncomfortably with the sinister and divisive tone of the rest of the novel.  But Daphne was always willing to work with what her editors and publishers wanted, so unusually, two versions of the book exist.

Golden Lads: A Study of Anthony Bacon, Francis and Their Friends - UK first edition

The biography Golden Lads: A Study of Anthony Bacon, Francis and Their Friends was published by both Victor Gollancz in the UK and Doubleday in the US in 1975, making this year its 50th anniversary.

By the mid-1970s, Daphne no longer had more ideas for writing fiction.  She had enjoyed the work of writing her biography about Branwell Bronte in 1960, and so she decided to step into the world of biography once more.  The subject Daphne chose was a study of Anthony Bacon, Francis Bacon and their friends.  She carried out extensive research of letters and records both in France and England and told the story of Anthony and Francis Bacon and their links to Queen Elizabeth I through the Earl of Essex.  Anthony acted as an agent in France, collecting intelligence information for the Earl.  Later, the Queen compelled Francis to charge the Earl of Essex with treason, for which the Earl was beheaded in February 1601.  Anthony died in May 1601, but Frances lived on to become Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper and to win fame as a writer and philosopher. 

Daphne enjoyed the research and the work involved in writing a biography and proved her ability to write in this genre with great success.  She went on to write the sequel to Golden Lads in 1976.

An image from the film The Breakthrough - 1975

A play of Daphne du Maurier's short story, The Breakthrough, was produced by Irene Shubik in her BBC2 series, The Mind Byond, in 1975, so again 50 years ago.  This play starred Simon Ward as Saunders, an engineer brought in to work with a small group of scientists at Saxmere, a research station, where some bizarre work is being carried out.  You can watch the film via our website.  The link is in the Video and Films section.  Please click here https://www.dumaurier.org/videosandfilms.php, and then scroll down to the Films for Television section.

The title page of the first edition in one volume of Trilby -1895

Our last anniversary relates to George du Maurier and his novel Trilby.  In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was customary for a single novel to be published in two-volume or three-volume sets, and this is certainly the case with the first edition of Trilby, which was published in three volumes.  The first edition of Trilby to be published as a single volume was in 1895, making this year its 130th anniversary.

© Ann Willmore, March 2025.

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