Du Maurier Forum
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The Old Man - short story
I am trying to locate the book (of short stories presumably) which contains the above story. | Fri 11/05/18 12:29 PM |
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| The Old Man was originally published in Daphne's short story collection The Apple Tree, which was published in 1952. It was also included in the Treasury of du Maurier Short Stories (1960) and Echoes From the Macabre (1976). It is currently available in the UK in the Virago paperback entitled The Birds and Other Stories. | Posted on Fri 11/05/18 12:42 PM |
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For years, The Old Man was my favourite short story. The ending is like the completion of a jigsaw puzzle; everything suddenly 'clicks into place'.
Now I have a new favourite. It's called 'Escort', and I've read it recently in a book called Rendezvous and Other Stories I ordered the book from our local Library's back stock as I'd seen something on the du Maurier website that needed checking out. Trouble is I can't now remember why! Perhaps management can help me!
Escort is a marvellous ghost story, full of atmosphere and evocative detail, and I really recommend it! | Posted on Tue 04/12/18 07:56 AM |
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| Just wanted to say, yesterday I read The Old Man and I really enjoyed it. It is such a brilliant, suspenseful and clever story. I would encourage anyone to read it and I got my copy {virago] from Bookends. | Posted on Fri 27/09/19 04:18 PM |
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| The Old man is one of my favourite short stories, how Daphne keeps the "secret" right up till the last page is very clever. | Posted on Sat 28/09/19 10:32 PM |
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| The Old Man is a masterpiece. I would never had guessed the final outcome which left me speechless. | Posted on Thu 08/02/24 08:56 PM |
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| Do we know who the narrator is ? Perhaps the same? | Posted on Sat 04/05/24 10:00 AM |
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| Thank you for your question about who the narrator is in the short story The Old Man. To answer this, I don’t want to say any spoilers, so I will call the family that lived beside the lake the S*** family. There is no doubt in my mind that the narrator is Daphne du Maurier herself. When she wrote this story, she was living at Menabilly. She would walk down from the house to Polridmouth Beach regularly and pass the lake, which is precisely as she describes. The S*** family still live there, descendants of the family that Daphne would have seen. Everything is exactly as Daphne describes. You do sometimes see the S*** family in the harbour of the little town, which is, of course, Fowey. I have seen the family up Pont Creek, in the harbour, on Polridmouth Beach and by the lake. Ann Willmore (on behalf of the Daphne du Maurier website). | Posted on Sun 05/05/24 04:46 PM |
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