📚 The joys of literary classics lie in elaborately crafted atmospheres, deeply complex characters, and visceral and probing stories. Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 gothic classic Rebecca serves all these elements and much more. If this is your first time experiencing Rebecca, be prepared for a mashup of Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, with a touch of Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

The plot: Headlined by one of literature’s most famous opening lines, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” the novel follows our unnamed protagonist as she accompanies a wealthy and desperate Mrs. Van Hoppers to Monte Carlo. Right in the heart of the glamorous city, our heroine meets and marries the widower Maxim de Winter, and from there, the story quickly takes off into suspense, drama, and gothic intrigue.

Rebecca is an unconventional classic — it’s 500 pages, but surprisingly easy to read compared to similar hefty classics. While some may feel the prose is too flowery and the beginning a bit slow, what ultimately made Rebecca memorable was its descriptive language — at least for our classic literature-loving selves.

Not really into classics? We’d argue Rebecca is one you might find yourself swept up in. This offbeat modern classic is more plot-driven than most — it reads more like a thriller wrapped in a fully realized and polished story of romance and jealousy. On top of that, the richly drawn characters are bound to resonate with you on some level.

WHERE TO GET IT- You can find the paperback at Diwan. You can also find the eBook on Kindle and Kobo.

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