Jamaica Inn
by du Maurier, Daphne
- Used
- fair
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Fair/Fine
- Seller
-
Templeton, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Doubleday, 1936. Book. Fair. Hardcover. 1st Edition. Later printing (circa early 1960's) of first edition. Light beige buckram cover with faded salmon text and graphics. Ex-library with tape ghosts, stamps, label remains. Spine gutter slightly exposed inside though tight. Rubbing on boards The cool Rex Whistler dust jacket is NOT price clipped and has very slight rubbing at some points and edges but looks newish and slick in a new archival mylar cover..
Reviews
On Oct 8 2013, Feeney said:
I saw JAMAICA INN the 1939 movie before I read the 1936 novel. The movie, with young Maureen O'Hara and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is very, very loosely, too loosely, based on the novel and in my opinion badly told to boot. Novel's author Daphne du Maurier wrote to her publisher: "Don't go and see it, it is a wretched affair." ***Hitchcock's JAMAICA INN frankly depressed me. It was that bad and demotivated me for reading the novel. But, in the end, dutifully, I opened du Maurier's tale of Cornish smugglers and killers in the early 19th Century and was drawn in at once to an astonishingly good yarn. 23-year old recently orphaned Mary Yellan travels by coach to the barren, forbidding interior uplands of Cornwall. There, as she promised her dying mother, she moves in with her mother's older sister Patience and the latter's abusive husband of ten years Joss Merlyn. By trickery Joss had bought from an upright local squire real and still existing Jamaica Inn, perched on a desolate stretch of highway between two towns on the dangerous moors. Joss is nearly seven feet tall, a hopeless alcoholic and apparent leader and brains behind a 100 man strong gang of smugglers. The smugglers are also "breakers," men who lure ships to destruction on rocks of the wild Cornish coast, murder survivors and steal their valuables. *** Mary Yellan is that indispensable figure of every true "thriller," the isolated hero, utterly friendless, up against powerful persons but supported by no allies, at least initially. Like a good modern historian, Daphne du Maurier is careful to make Mary Yellan know no more about what is going on about her than she can learn for herself. The third person narrator's point of view is not godlike. It is realistic. Mary falls in love with her uncle's much younger and far less reprehensible -- but no saint -- brother Jem. Jem despises churches, vicars, religion nore is very fond of women and makes his money stealing, disguising and selling horses from his neighbors across the moors. ***A mouthpiece for du Maurier's own experiences with men, animal-wise country woman Mary Yellan is at a loss to understand why otherwise sensible women fall for objectionable men. Some of her musings: --(1) "Animals did not reason... There was precious little romance in nature, and she would not look for it in her own life"; --(2) Telling Jem why she thinks she loves him and will relunctantly go with him on Jem's terms: "Because I want to; because I must; because now and forever more this is where I belong to be." *** Keep your eye on seldom seen Anglican priest Francis Davey, albino vicar of Altarnun on the moors. He becomes Mary's only friend, hears with apparent empathy her tales of evil that she has seen through living at Jamaica Inn. He is the first person with any real power to show Mary kindness. Yet more than once the novel shows a suspicious Mary Yellan worrying about who and what sort of "freak" albino Davey really might be. Incredibly, his part was written out for the 1939 movie version. -OOO-
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Details
- Seller
- Winding Road Books (US)
- Seller's Inventory #
- 002087
- Title
- Jamaica Inn
- Author
- du Maurier, Daphne
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fair
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Publisher
- Doubleday
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1936
- Keywords
- Historical Fiction
Terms of Sale
Winding Road Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Winding Road Books
Biblio member since 2019
Templeton, California
About Winding Road Books
Specialize in Psychology, First Editions, Speculative Fiction
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Fair
- is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....
- Buckram
- A plain weave fabric normally made from cotton or linen which is stiffened with starch or other chemicals to cover the book...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gutter
- The inside margin of a book, connecting the pages to the joints near the binding.
- Rubbing
- Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Price Clipped
- When a book is described as price-clipped, it indicates that the portion of the dust jacket flap that has the publisher's...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.