The house was not big enough to hold both Tod and Tommy, and Daphne would be caught in the middle of their bickering. Moreover, there was the problem of 'Tod', Maud Waddell, Daphne's housekeeper and former governess. If Tommy retired and lived at Menabilly full-time, she felt she would not be able to stand his constant presence, nor would she be able to write, but on the other hand she saw that, if he did not retire, he would push himself to the brink and there would be another, perhaps worse crisis (Forster, 1994, p.303). The prospect of Tommy's retirement loomed over Daphne for the next year and caused her great agony of mind.
She worried both about being able to do justice to Q's impeccable prose and that the request came at a time when she had financial problems, marital difficulties and worries about the soon-to-expire lease to Menabilly, her beloved house on the Gribbin peninsula, which belonged to Dr John Rashleigh.īy 1958, Daphne had come to believe that her husband, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning ('Tommy'), should retire from his position in Prince Philip's household, a move that would have severe consequences for her own working life:
In her preface to the 1962 Dent edition, Foy Quiller-Couch, daughter of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch ('Q'), explains how the manuscript came into her possession on his death in 1944 and how in 1959, after re-reading it, she decided to ask her great friend Daphne du Maurier to finish the novel, in spite of Q's opinion that it would never be good enough to publish.ĭaphne was dubious at first. This study is not a literary criticism but a discussion of the background to Castle Dor and references in the text which reflect not only the context of the two authors' lives, motivation, and research but also local topography, Cornish history and folklore related to the legend of Tristan and Iseult, upon which the novel is based.
0 kommentar(er)
