Daphne du Maurier and Gothic Adaptation : Hauntings, Doubles, and Cultural Reimaginings (Anthem Studies in Gothic Literature)

This volume is dedicated to exploring the ever-evolving cultural legacy of one of British Gothic’s most central and enduring figures: Daphne du Maurier. Its chapters interrogate how du Maurier’s most famous novels and short stories, including Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, The Scapegoat, ‘The Birds’ and ‘Don’t Look Now’, have been adapted for literature, film, television, musical theatre, opera and beyond, throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. In doing so, they consider how the Gothic tropes central to du Maurier’s fiction, including female doubles and dangerous landscapes, have been continually revised and reimagined for different audiences, engaging with the anxious development of discourses around morality, feminism, postcolonialism, queerness and climate catastrophe. The collection thus contributes to vital investigations into the evolution of the female Gothic over the last century. And by focusing on adaptation, these interrogations are particularly concerned with the Gothic’s investment in unresolved cultural issues, exploring how they are continually re-awoken and reworked within new socio-political contexts. Moreover, the volume seeks to reveal and explore the implications of adaptation as a distinctly Gothic process, one inextricably intertwined with hauntings, doublings and transformations.