Daphne Du Maurier was born in London in 1907 to an actress mother and an actor-manager father. Along with her two sisters, she was home schooled by governesses and grew up in a world of fantasy, story, and imagination. The family's holidays at their country home made Daphne du Maurier develop an everlasting love for Cornwall, which became the backdrop of many of her stories. In 1931, she published her first novel The Loving Spirit. In 1935, she was recognized as a writer to reckon with when she wrote an honest biography about her father titled Gerald: A Portrait. Jamaica Inn in 1936 made it to the bestseller charts. She married Major Frederick Browning in 1932. She wrote Rebecca in 1938 which became her best known work. Alfred Hitchcock made Rebecca into a movie in 1940. Two of her other novels, Frenchman's Creek and Hungry Hill, also became popular films. She was honored by the title Dame of the British Empire in 1969. She believed that writers should be read, neither seen nor heard, and once you pick her work you will read until the end-- until all your senses are gently awakened. She died in 1989 in Cornwall.