Mary Anne

"Memoir in form of a novel...Mary Anne Clarke was a famous courtesan, mistress of Frederick, Duke of York, son of George III. She also sold military commissions and wrote scurrilous pamphlets and memoirs. Miss du Maurier makes this lively ancestress (who uses as modern a word as ’moronic’) as vivid a figure as her fictional contemporary, Becky Sharp." -Wilson’s Fiction Catalog, 7th edition

Daphne Du Maurier’s father was Gerald Du Maurier, a famous actor-manager, whose life she wrote in "Gerald: A Portrait." Her grandfather was George Du Maurier, the artist and novelist...

Her books have now sold over a million copies in hardcover editions alone...She is a gifted craftsman and a skillful spinner of yarns. Her novels make excellent movies because of their "expert blend of suspense, shrewd realism, and romantic hokum" - Time.

It has been noted that some of her characters, especially in "Rebecca," might have appeared in such Bronte novels as "Wuthering Heights." She has written with discernment of the dissolute Bronte brother in "The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte." Besides thoroughly researching her subject "she has woven her special brand of sorcery around it." -The Reader’s Adviser, 11th edition, R.R. Bowker Company

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