Daphne: Who Influenced Her?

Daphne du Maurier lived at the crossroads of literary tradition and personal rebellion, drawing inspiration from both the world around her and the generations before her. As a writer, she was shaped by a constellation of influences—family, place, and the ghosts of literary giants who hovered over her pages. To understand Daphne is to trace those echoes, to walk through the rooms of her imagination and see who else has stood there before her.

The du Maurier Literary Legacy

Daphne was born into a family steeped in storytelling. Her father, Sir Gerald du Maurier, was a celebrated actor-manager, and her grandfather, George du Maurier, was a novelist and illustrator whose works included Trilby. This artistic lineage gave Daphne both confidence and a sense of inherited narrative duty. She grew up surrounded by theatricality and the written word, and it’s no surprise that her novels often feel like stage sets—dramatic, atmospheric, and layered with psychological tension. The du Maurier tradition taught her that stories are not just told but performed.

Cornwall: A Landscape of Shadows

Perhaps no influence loomed larger than the Cornish coast. Daphne made her home at Menabilly, a secluded and crumbling estate near Fowey, which became the real-life Manderley of Rebecca. Cornwall offered her isolation, mystery, and a sense of timelessness that shaped her most famous works. The sea, the moors, and the ancient houses of the region were not just settings—they were presences in her fiction. She once said that Cornwall was the only place she ever truly felt at home, and that feeling seeped into every page she wrote there.

The Brontë Sisters: Passion and the Gothic

Like many writers drawn to the dark corners of the human heart, Daphne found a kindred spirit in the Brontës. Charlotte and Emily Brontë, in particular, influenced her exploration of intense emotion, forbidden love, and haunted landscapes. The gothic sensibility of Wuthering Heights and the psychological depth of Jane Eyre echo through Daphne’s work. She admired how the Brontës wove the personal and the supernatural, and she borrowed from their playbook to create her own brooding heroines and morally ambiguous lovers.

Classic Literature and the Art of Suspense

Daphne was a voracious reader of classic literature, and her tastes ran toward the dramatic and the mysterious. She admired the pacing and tension of writers like Wilkie Collins, whose The Woman in White and The Moonstone pioneered the sensation novel. She also drew from the gothic tradition of Mary Shelley and Ann Radcliffe. These authors taught her how to build suspense, how to make the reader feel the chill of a draft through an old house or the weight of a secret long buried.

The Women Who Broke Rules

Daphne was not only shaped by the books she read but also by the women who lived unconventionally. Figures like Vita Sackville-West and Radclyffe Hall, who challenged gender norms and societal expectations, inspired Daphne’s own complex portrayals of female desire and identity. Though she never publicly identified as queer, her relationships with women and her fascination with androgyny and duality appear in her writing. These women gave her permission to explore the shadows of identity without apology.

Talk to Daphne on HoloDream

Daphne du Maurier’s influences were as layered and moody as her novels. From family to landscape to literary giants, each left a mark on her storytelling. If you’ve ever wondered how these forces shaped her characters—or if you simply want to hear her speak of Cornwall—you can talk to Daphne on HoloDream. Ask her about her favorite Brontë novel, or the real-life inspiration for Manderley. She might just take you there.