In Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 gothic novel Rebecca, a young woman marries a wealthy widower, Maxim de Winter, only to discover – too late! – that he and his household are haunted by the memory of his first wife, its title character. The book is, famously, a tale of jealousy and the tricks it may play on the mind, bending it out of shape. But it’s also about power. Rebecca’s narrator, the second Mrs de Winter, isn’t only (at first) timid and naive; she’s also a possession, a wife whose real name we will never learn.
