Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” It may be one of the best-known opening lines in all of literature, but now Rebecca has become famous for another reason altogether: Daphne du Maurier’s haunting novel has unwittingly lent its name to “Rebecca syndrome”.
The story, adapted a number of times for film and television since the book’s 1938 publication, sees the narrator meet widower Maxim de Winter and marry him in haste. But as they begin their life together as newlyweds, she becomes increasingly obsessed with his late wife, Rebecca – an object of glamour and fascination, whom the second Mrs de Winter feels she will never live up to.
