Du Maurier, Daphne

The British novelist and playwright Daphne du Maurier was born in London to parents who were both prominent actors; her grandfather was an author and caricaturist for Punch. Daphne du Maurier attended public schools in London and Paris and began to write at an early age, her first novel The Loving Spirit came in 1931. The following year she married Frederick "Boy" Browning, later promoted to Lieutenant-General and a hero of World War II. They lived at Menabilly, their Cornwall home, a house that was always close to her heart and a source of inspiration for several of her books. The centenary of her birth was largely celebrated in Cornwall.