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Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories
Book by Du Maurier, Daphne
348 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
26 people are currently reading
1354 people want to read
About the author
Daphne du Maurier
430 books10.1k followersDaphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
March 4, 2017
Quiet and nuanced, tending more toward suspense than horror, you will not find the fantastical twists and turns that tweak us in present day reads of this ilk. What you will find is Daphne du Maurier's beautiful writing. Atmospheric, moody, and thoughtful. The majority of the short stories in this collection were written in the 1950's, with this particular anthology being published in 1978, and selling for a whopping $1.95.
The Old Man
After reading this, I was completely nonplussed, and immediately read it again. Although it was not horrifying in any way, it was my favorite in the collection. What the author did there was stunning.
The Blue Lenses
Does the truth lie behind the eye of the beholder? Was the surgery to restore sight to a blind woman a success? There was a definite Twilight Zone feel to this tale.
The Apple Tree
An ancient malformed apple tree bursts into full bloom after years of bearing no fruit at all. The gardener is pleased. The owner, not so much.
Six more shorties round out this anthology and they include The Birds and Don't Look Now, two of du Maurier's better known tales.
The Old Man
After reading this, I was completely nonplussed, and immediately read it again. Although it was not horrifying in any way, it was my favorite in the collection. What the author did there was stunning.
The Blue Lenses
Does the truth lie behind the eye of the beholder? Was the surgery to restore sight to a blind woman a success? There was a definite Twilight Zone feel to this tale.
The Apple Tree
An ancient malformed apple tree bursts into full bloom after years of bearing no fruit at all. The gardener is pleased. The owner, not so much.
Six more shorties round out this anthology and they include The Birds and Don't Look Now, two of du Maurier's better known tales.
November 2, 2025
I am embarrassed to say I have owned this book since 1981, when I was a member of the Book-of-the Month Club. Not sure why I’ve held off reading it’s- maybe fear, who knows. But my GR friend, Kimber Silver, recently read a similar collection and after reading her review, I decided it was time. Better late than never!
This collection of 9 stories gripped me, made me feel tense and anxious but ultimately truly amazed at Daphne du Maurier’s talent to craft such complete, memorable short stories. I would not call them horror stories, more psychological and Gothic with a bit of magical realism. A few of my favourites, although they were all excellent.
DON’T LOOK NOW: A couple grieving the death of their daughter meet up with 2 twin women while vacationing in Venice. One is a medium who claims to see their daughter. She also warns them of danger. John scoffs at this foolishness, his wife does not. This story had me on edge. I recently saw the movie and this story is way better.
THE APPLE TREE: After the death of his wife, a husband becomes obsessed with an apple tree in his yard- the tree reminding him of his wife. A story of obsession and so much more.
THE BLUE LENSES: Marda has eye surgery for her deteriorating vision. She has temporary lenses placed in her eyes. What she is able to see with her new lenses is revelatory.
THE BIRDS: Did you, like I did, watch this movie when you were young and it scared you so much, you couldn’t sleep? Well, the story does the same.
Daphne du Maurier is a genius when it comes to creating tension and fear in her reader but in the same breath, she makes me think of the possibilities and the meaning of each of her stories.
Published: various-1952-1976
This collection of 9 stories gripped me, made me feel tense and anxious but ultimately truly amazed at Daphne du Maurier’s talent to craft such complete, memorable short stories. I would not call them horror stories, more psychological and Gothic with a bit of magical realism. A few of my favourites, although they were all excellent.
DON’T LOOK NOW: A couple grieving the death of their daughter meet up with 2 twin women while vacationing in Venice. One is a medium who claims to see their daughter. She also warns them of danger. John scoffs at this foolishness, his wife does not. This story had me on edge. I recently saw the movie and this story is way better.
THE APPLE TREE: After the death of his wife, a husband becomes obsessed with an apple tree in his yard- the tree reminding him of his wife. A story of obsession and so much more.
THE BLUE LENSES: Marda has eye surgery for her deteriorating vision. She has temporary lenses placed in her eyes. What she is able to see with her new lenses is revelatory.
THE BIRDS: Did you, like I did, watch this movie when you were young and it scared you so much, you couldn’t sleep? Well, the story does the same.
Daphne du Maurier is a genius when it comes to creating tension and fear in her reader but in the same breath, she makes me think of the possibilities and the meaning of each of her stories.
Published: various-1952-1976
February 27, 2012
ECHOES FROM THE MACABRE is actually the perfect title for this collection of longish short fiction from the reliable Daphne Du Maurier. Up to this point, I'd only read "The Birds" (which appears here - inescapable in many an anthology of my youth), "Don't Look Now" (love the story - which appears here - as well as the excellent film) and the odd parallel timeline piece "Split Second" (not here), so it was nice to be able to sink my teeth into a solid selection and explore her writing.
What you get here, as might be expected, is solid skills wedded to some interesting tones and themes. As I said ECHOES FROM THE MACABRE is apt - the stories move on the peripheries of genre and sub-genre - nothing here is straight-ahead "horror" of most any definition - there's suspense and thriller structures, to be sure, something like the traditional English ghost story in one case, an enigmatic tale that struck me as very Robert Aickman, some pieces that rub up against "the weird tale" without being that "weird", psychological examinations... in a way, she shares a lot with Shirley Jackson, I feel (a decidedly more dry, British take on Jackson, to be sure).
"The Old Man" is the shortest piece here, an interesting observation of odd family dynamics at a distance, with an ending that's not so much a "twist" as it's a complete change of focus that makes us reconsider our moral judgements. I imagine that ending might bug those who felt they'd just signed on to be told a story and finish off feeling "tricked", but I enjoyed the sudden, near-surreal shift of conception and reminder just how much control a good writer has over the reader (this would be a good writing class story, as well, I think).
"The Chamois" is perhaps the most maddening story here - it's an enjoyable read but I also felt that the gestural vagueness that Du Maurier can evoke was perhaps here a little too vague (at least for me). A husband and wife (not so much emotionally distant as mutually independent - deft psychological writing lucidly and concisely sketches this out for us) pursue rare chamois in the Greek mountains, lodging with a rural goatherd to help with the hunt. It's hard to say if I thought this story was successful because it's hard to say exactly what happens here - the revelation of the husband's fear of heights was quite well done, offering an unexpected, suspenseful moment. But the wife's fixation on the goatherd, paralleling the husband's fixation on the elusive chamois, seemed too vague to me (especially considering later statements near the climax). As to the significance of said goatherd's name being "Jesus", well... A good story to discuss, but it leaves you hanging a bit, and not completely in a deliberate, intended way, I feel.
When I first read "Don't Look Now", long after seeing the film, I was surprised at how much of the movie is actually in it - including that truly bizarre and disturbing ending (those who hate the movie, or even just the ending, might get a chuckle out of the husband's last thought at the closing of this written version). A husband and wife, visiting Venice (the drowning city) after the death of their young daughter, run into a pair of sisters, one of whom has psychic visions and speaks to the dead. An emergency splits the couple up, but when the husband sees something that doesn't make any sense, he's off on an endless chase 'round the City of Death, trying desperately to figure out what's going on and why. Once you know the secrets of this story, it's a pleasure to read for minor details: the setting, the double return, the warnings, the initial appearance of the "rain-slickered girl". Truly, an odd little gem.
There's a long tradition in the horror genre (in its broadest definition here as the strange and supernatural tale) of explorations into the imaginations of children ("Sredni Vashtar" & "Thus I Refute Beelzy", and the film PHANTASM spring to mind), especially those bordering on adolescence - when something is being left behind and some other knowledge is being gained. "The Pool", while dramatic, is probably the gentlest story here - a tale of imagination and the private rituals of thoughtful children, in which the loss of innocence and growing awareness of the approaching confusion and complexity of the adult world ends up expressed in self-destructive actions. I expected this was based on some of Du Maurier's personal memories and was proved right with a little research.
"The Blue Lenses" - in which a woman recovers from an eye operation only to discover that everyone around her now look distinctly different (saying how would ruin the fun) is an extended foray into the suspense/thriller form - in ways, reminding me of Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby as our poor harried protagonist succumbs to mounting disbelief, desperation and paranoia (all while Du Maurier does a nice job sketching out the power dynamics between convalescent patients and doctors/nurses). The "solution" when it comes, may be unsatisfying to some but one can see it as another example of her playing with the author's control over story. And the ambiguous final "tag", I felt, had some nice psychological depth to it.
"Kiss Me Again, Stranger" is an extended character study but quite a well-done one. Du Maurier gets right inside the head of a young, working class mechanic, somewhat bored and jaded, and her command of his internal voice is so authentic it impresses immensely - honestly, not very much happens in this story, but the thoughts and musings and observations of this young man as he goes to the movies and falls for an enigmatic young woman who works as an usherette - impulsively taking her out for the evening and a jaunt which culminates in a visit to a diner and then a graveyard - just flows along on marvelous, lucid writing that tumbles from thought to thought effortlessly. There's that psychological interiority of Aickman I mentioned before, but not as obscure as Aickman, and the story itself - which resolves into an odd, "after the fact" suspense tale tinged with sadness - really only has one of two possible endings (I'll say this - it is NOT "The Tale of the German Student")!
But I think that fans of Robert Aickman should really check out "Not After Midnight" because it's here that Du Maurier's stylistic explorations comes closest to that singular writer. A British Professor, not a fan of much human contact (in truth, a wonderfully charming snob - his snobbery forms some of the most entertaining reading), vacations in Greece (nice evocation of the beautiful, rugged, sun-drenched countryside), commandeering a recently vacated cottage (after complaining about his sub-standard, plebeian rental) and running afoul of a debauched, loud-mouthed American Southerner and his wealthy wife who reportedly spend their days scuba diving. There's intrigue, night swims and effective plotting as our narrator discovers more to the situation than meets the eye and delves into the dark rites of Silenus. I'm not totally sure the ending is successful - but then I'd really like to discuss the ending with someone - I won't give anything away on this side of the spoiler zone - but the story is told in flashback and the opening heavily implies that our narrator has returned from Greece with . Interesting tale.
"The Birds" is a classic, although I'd bet more people have seen the film than read the story. I could be wrong on that but what's most interesting about the story is that - absolutely unlike DON'T LOOK NOW - the Hitchcock film is very different than the source material (there's none of the sexual and gender psychodrama of Hitch's film - although as to *what* exactly he was trying to say in that film - outside of the idea that nature goes crazy when the sexes don't get along - I've never been able to crack). Du Maurier's "Birds" is all about rural, familial farm life on the rugged shore, the day to day details of living with nature - and the slow-building, suspenseful accrual of details, ominous portents caught by the trained eye of the narrator. In truth, it's a stunningly apocalyptic tale when all is said and done, revolving on the contrast between self-sufficiency and inadequate preparedness versus the very British trust in Government stability and subsequent lack of support.
I finished with "The Apple Tree" because I was really impressed by this story. In a sense, there's nothing surprising about its plot (The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, one of my most trusted critical resources, even dismisses the tale as "predictable", IIRC) but the plot itself seems to me besides the point. By now it should be obvious that Du Maurier excels at deep, psychologically rich character studies - so this tale of a recently widowed man who begins to conflate his not-very-grieved for dead wife and a stunted apple tree growing in his yard, and how said apple tree ends up making his life miserable, may advance to an expected conclusion (Roald Dahl could probably have told this story at a third of the page count) once he commits to cutting down the tree, but what I found really fascinating in this story was how deeply and deftly it juggles the *truth* of the dynamic between the long-suffering, eternally martyred, depressing/depressive wife and the recently widowed, "free-at-last" husband, without the easy go-to of nasty, comic-book cynicism you might find in Dahl. The story slowly turns our allegiance - initially with the husband, as the wife sounds like such a shrewish pill while she was alive that no one would have wanted to spend five minutes with her - towards the dead woman, as we are revealed more of the husband's cold, uncaring character and inability to acknowledge his wife's love even early on in their marriage, and his very British need for a wife who's more of a work-slave and mother figure, than an equal. The reader begins to question their earlier impressions of the morose wife as we learn more of the husband's character, as everything we know *of* her comes from *him* (again, that attention to what control the writer can exert over the reader - Du Maurier really knew what she was doing).
But then, as the apple tree begins to make manifest his burdensome wife more directly, and he struggles to still extricate himself from her influences even after death, our allegiances shift, somewhat, yet again - understanding the husband's growing awareness of age and the approaching grave, his loss of potency, so that the inevitable ending seems more profoundly sad and human than "horrible". A truly excellent story!
What you get here, as might be expected, is solid skills wedded to some interesting tones and themes. As I said ECHOES FROM THE MACABRE is apt - the stories move on the peripheries of genre and sub-genre - nothing here is straight-ahead "horror" of most any definition - there's suspense and thriller structures, to be sure, something like the traditional English ghost story in one case, an enigmatic tale that struck me as very Robert Aickman, some pieces that rub up against "the weird tale" without being that "weird", psychological examinations... in a way, she shares a lot with Shirley Jackson, I feel (a decidedly more dry, British take on Jackson, to be sure).
"The Old Man" is the shortest piece here, an interesting observation of odd family dynamics at a distance, with an ending that's not so much a "twist" as it's a complete change of focus that makes us reconsider our moral judgements. I imagine that ending might bug those who felt they'd just signed on to be told a story and finish off feeling "tricked", but I enjoyed the sudden, near-surreal shift of conception and reminder just how much control a good writer has over the reader (this would be a good writing class story, as well, I think).
"The Chamois" is perhaps the most maddening story here - it's an enjoyable read but I also felt that the gestural vagueness that Du Maurier can evoke was perhaps here a little too vague (at least for me). A husband and wife (not so much emotionally distant as mutually independent - deft psychological writing lucidly and concisely sketches this out for us) pursue rare chamois in the Greek mountains, lodging with a rural goatherd to help with the hunt. It's hard to say if I thought this story was successful because it's hard to say exactly what happens here - the revelation of the husband's fear of heights was quite well done, offering an unexpected, suspenseful moment. But the wife's fixation on the goatherd, paralleling the husband's fixation on the elusive chamois, seemed too vague to me (especially considering later statements near the climax). As to the significance of said goatherd's name being "Jesus", well... A good story to discuss, but it leaves you hanging a bit, and not completely in a deliberate, intended way, I feel.
When I first read "Don't Look Now", long after seeing the film, I was surprised at how much of the movie is actually in it - including that truly bizarre and disturbing ending (those who hate the movie, or even just the ending, might get a chuckle out of the husband's last thought at the closing of this written version). A husband and wife, visiting Venice (the drowning city) after the death of their young daughter, run into a pair of sisters, one of whom has psychic visions and speaks to the dead. An emergency splits the couple up, but when the husband sees something that doesn't make any sense, he's off on an endless chase 'round the City of Death, trying desperately to figure out what's going on and why. Once you know the secrets of this story, it's a pleasure to read for minor details: the setting, the double return, the warnings, the initial appearance of the "rain-slickered girl". Truly, an odd little gem.
There's a long tradition in the horror genre (in its broadest definition here as the strange and supernatural tale) of explorations into the imaginations of children ("Sredni Vashtar" & "Thus I Refute Beelzy", and the film PHANTASM spring to mind), especially those bordering on adolescence - when something is being left behind and some other knowledge is being gained. "The Pool", while dramatic, is probably the gentlest story here - a tale of imagination and the private rituals of thoughtful children, in which the loss of innocence and growing awareness of the approaching confusion and complexity of the adult world ends up expressed in self-destructive actions. I expected this was based on some of Du Maurier's personal memories and was proved right with a little research.
"The Blue Lenses" - in which a woman recovers from an eye operation only to discover that everyone around her now look distinctly different (saying how would ruin the fun) is an extended foray into the suspense/thriller form - in ways, reminding me of Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby as our poor harried protagonist succumbs to mounting disbelief, desperation and paranoia (all while Du Maurier does a nice job sketching out the power dynamics between convalescent patients and doctors/nurses). The "solution" when it comes, may be unsatisfying to some but one can see it as another example of her playing with the author's control over story. And the ambiguous final "tag", I felt, had some nice psychological depth to it.
"Kiss Me Again, Stranger" is an extended character study but quite a well-done one. Du Maurier gets right inside the head of a young, working class mechanic, somewhat bored and jaded, and her command of his internal voice is so authentic it impresses immensely - honestly, not very much happens in this story, but the thoughts and musings and observations of this young man as he goes to the movies and falls for an enigmatic young woman who works as an usherette - impulsively taking her out for the evening and a jaunt which culminates in a visit to a diner and then a graveyard - just flows along on marvelous, lucid writing that tumbles from thought to thought effortlessly. There's that psychological interiority of Aickman I mentioned before, but not as obscure as Aickman, and the story itself - which resolves into an odd, "after the fact" suspense tale tinged with sadness - really only has one of two possible endings (I'll say this - it is NOT "The Tale of the German Student")!
But I think that fans of Robert Aickman should really check out "Not After Midnight" because it's here that Du Maurier's stylistic explorations comes closest to that singular writer. A British Professor, not a fan of much human contact (in truth, a wonderfully charming snob - his snobbery forms some of the most entertaining reading), vacations in Greece (nice evocation of the beautiful, rugged, sun-drenched countryside), commandeering a recently vacated cottage (after complaining about his sub-standard, plebeian rental) and running afoul of a debauched, loud-mouthed American Southerner and his wealthy wife who reportedly spend their days scuba diving. There's intrigue, night swims and effective plotting as our narrator discovers more to the situation than meets the eye and delves into the dark rites of Silenus. I'm not totally sure the ending is successful - but then I'd really like to discuss the ending with someone - I won't give anything away on this side of the spoiler zone - but the story is told in flashback and the opening heavily implies that our narrator has returned from Greece with . Interesting tale.
"The Birds" is a classic, although I'd bet more people have seen the film than read the story. I could be wrong on that but what's most interesting about the story is that - absolutely unlike DON'T LOOK NOW - the Hitchcock film is very different than the source material (there's none of the sexual and gender psychodrama of Hitch's film - although as to *what* exactly he was trying to say in that film - outside of the idea that nature goes crazy when the sexes don't get along - I've never been able to crack). Du Maurier's "Birds" is all about rural, familial farm life on the rugged shore, the day to day details of living with nature - and the slow-building, suspenseful accrual of details, ominous portents caught by the trained eye of the narrator. In truth, it's a stunningly apocalyptic tale when all is said and done, revolving on the contrast between self-sufficiency and inadequate preparedness versus the very British trust in Government stability and subsequent lack of support.
I finished with "The Apple Tree" because I was really impressed by this story. In a sense, there's nothing surprising about its plot (The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, one of my most trusted critical resources, even dismisses the tale as "predictable", IIRC) but the plot itself seems to me besides the point. By now it should be obvious that Du Maurier excels at deep, psychologically rich character studies - so this tale of a recently widowed man who begins to conflate his not-very-grieved for dead wife and a stunted apple tree growing in his yard, and how said apple tree ends up making his life miserable, may advance to an expected conclusion (Roald Dahl could probably have told this story at a third of the page count) once he commits to cutting down the tree, but what I found really fascinating in this story was how deeply and deftly it juggles the *truth* of the dynamic between the long-suffering, eternally martyred, depressing/depressive wife and the recently widowed, "free-at-last" husband, without the easy go-to of nasty, comic-book cynicism you might find in Dahl. The story slowly turns our allegiance - initially with the husband, as the wife sounds like such a shrewish pill while she was alive that no one would have wanted to spend five minutes with her - towards the dead woman, as we are revealed more of the husband's cold, uncaring character and inability to acknowledge his wife's love even early on in their marriage, and his very British need for a wife who's more of a work-slave and mother figure, than an equal. The reader begins to question their earlier impressions of the morose wife as we learn more of the husband's character, as everything we know *of* her comes from *him* (again, that attention to what control the writer can exert over the reader - Du Maurier really knew what she was doing).
But then, as the apple tree begins to make manifest his burdensome wife more directly, and he struggles to still extricate himself from her influences even after death, our allegiances shift, somewhat, yet again - understanding the husband's growing awareness of age and the approaching grave, his loss of potency, so that the inevitable ending seems more profoundly sad and human than "horrible". A truly excellent story!
March 15, 2024
I'm really enjoying reading what I find in the libraries by Daphne du Maurier 😊😃 her approach/style seems a really good fit with my brain, and I really like the time she takes to build her stories, and the kinda subtlety in the twists and turns, even when they're kinda dramatic ones - it's never felt jarring yet.
all of these stories were pretty slow build, dramatic and scary without being dramatic about it - more a building tension, and psychological and/or emotional twist 🙂
two I'd read before and didn't reread/relisten. the other three were new to me, and I enjoyed them all in their different ways and forms 🙂
'The Old Man' was maybe the most surprising, but even then it was in keeping with what I know of her style - a small turn at the end cleverly changing much of the preceding story in one's emotional and intellectual understanding of, and response to, it 😃
🌟
my enjoyment of this collection was marred only by the audiobook production and library listing 😕
🙂 the stories themselves were well and nicely read by Valentine Dyall 🙂
😕 but the book blurb claimed 9 stories, when there were in fact only 5 😥
😕 and the audiobook had been badly transferred from CD, still contained disk announcements, had awful indexing with no story titles, and the 'chapter' headings not corresponding to the short stories but rather relating to original disks 🙄 I found it a really difficult audiobook to navigate 😬
all of these stories were pretty slow build, dramatic and scary without being dramatic about it - more a building tension, and psychological and/or emotional twist 🙂
two I'd read before and didn't reread/relisten. the other three were new to me, and I enjoyed them all in their different ways and forms 🙂
'The Old Man' was maybe the most surprising, but even then it was in keeping with what I know of her style - a small turn at the end cleverly changing much of the preceding story in one's emotional and intellectual understanding of, and response to, it 😃
🌟
my enjoyment of this collection was marred only by the audiobook production and library listing 😕
🙂 the stories themselves were well and nicely read by Valentine Dyall 🙂
😕 but the book blurb claimed 9 stories, when there were in fact only 5 😥
😕 and the audiobook had been badly transferred from CD, still contained disk announcements, had awful indexing with no story titles, and the 'chapter' headings not corresponding to the short stories but rather relating to original disks 🙄 I found it a really difficult audiobook to navigate 😬
September 10, 2017
Read it years ago. Amazing. The Birds and Don't Look Now are scary!
June 1, 2021
Rebecca was one of the first non-children's novels I ever read, when I was twelve, from a Reader's Digest condensed volume. This came into my hands pretty soon after. These fed my eternal love of creepy stories nicely. "Don't Look Now" is just so weird and disturbing and brilliant.
And lo, these many years later, still great.
Personal copy
And lo, these many years later, still great.
Personal copy
February 12, 2022
This is a review for the audiobook version of ‘Echoes of the Macabre’ read by Valentine Dyall. Unlike the paperback version (which doesn’t seem to have been reprinted since the late 1970s) the audiobook only has five stories - ‘Don't Look Now', 'Kiss Me Again Stranger', 'Not After Midnight', 'The Old Man' and 'The Birds'.
First off, the recording is an old one. Dyall died in 1985, so I think this recording dates from the early 80s. The volume fluctuates a bit, and there are some other background sounds here and there, that I found distracting. I also found Dyall’s narrating voice wasn’t for me. He has a very rich, rumbly, thespian’s voice which really drew attention to itself and distracted me from the stories. I became more used to it after a while, but I never stopped noticing it.
So, onto the stories themselves. As you would expect, I liked some of the stories more than others. I’ve seen the film versions of ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘The Birds’ and I think the book versions are better. ‘Don’t Look Now’ is similar to the film, but Hitchcock‘s ‘The Birds’ is very different to the original story. I felt far more menaced and worried by Du Maurier’s birds than Hitchcocks. The limited perspective of the ordinary family in the house made it all the more frightening and real.
The big disappointment was ‘Not After Midnight’. It was a longer story which didn’t make any sense. I looked about online, and it seems no one can explain it. It promised so much, but nothing reached a resolution. Lots of questions, but no answers.
The shortest story is ‘The Old Man’. It’s interesting and when I got to the end, I thought for a moment it had been cleverer than I realised. But I listened to it again and found I wouldn’t have seen the ending coming because it didn’t quite work. Still, like I said, it was interesting.
I liked ‘Kiss Me Again Stranger’. I really felt for the main character and I plan to listen to that one again. It helped too that Dyall narrated this story in a different voice to suit the character and it really drew me in.
Overall, I love Du Maurier’s style, so I enjoyed listening to all of them. Du Maurier is great at subtly building tension, while having a dark sense of humour and adding so many little human touches to her characters. She is one of my favourite writers.
First off, the recording is an old one. Dyall died in 1985, so I think this recording dates from the early 80s. The volume fluctuates a bit, and there are some other background sounds here and there, that I found distracting. I also found Dyall’s narrating voice wasn’t for me. He has a very rich, rumbly, thespian’s voice which really drew attention to itself and distracted me from the stories. I became more used to it after a while, but I never stopped noticing it.
So, onto the stories themselves. As you would expect, I liked some of the stories more than others. I’ve seen the film versions of ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘The Birds’ and I think the book versions are better. ‘Don’t Look Now’ is similar to the film, but Hitchcock‘s ‘The Birds’ is very different to the original story. I felt far more menaced and worried by Du Maurier’s birds than Hitchcocks. The limited perspective of the ordinary family in the house made it all the more frightening and real.
The big disappointment was ‘Not After Midnight’. It was a longer story which didn’t make any sense. I looked about online, and it seems no one can explain it. It promised so much, but nothing reached a resolution. Lots of questions, but no answers.
The shortest story is ‘The Old Man’. It’s interesting and when I got to the end, I thought for a moment it had been cleverer than I realised. But I listened to it again and found I wouldn’t have seen the ending coming because it didn’t quite work. Still, like I said, it was interesting.
I liked ‘Kiss Me Again Stranger’. I really felt for the main character and I plan to listen to that one again. It helped too that Dyall narrated this story in a different voice to suit the character and it really drew me in.
Overall, I love Du Maurier’s style, so I enjoyed listening to all of them. Du Maurier is great at subtly building tension, while having a dark sense of humour and adding so many little human touches to her characters. She is one of my favourite writers.
April 6, 2017
Real edge of the seat stuff. I can see why her books were made into movies.
November 6, 2023
3.77 Stars (I averaged my ratings of each of the short stories)
Don’t Look Now - 3/5
The Apple Tree - 3.5/5
The Pool - 4.5/5
The Blue Lenses - 4/5
Kiss Me Again, Stranger - 3.5/5
The Chamois - 3/5
Not After Midnight - 3.5/5
The Old Man - 5/5
The Birds - 4/5
Don’t Look Now - 3/5
The Apple Tree - 3.5/5
The Pool - 4.5/5
The Blue Lenses - 4/5
Kiss Me Again, Stranger - 3.5/5
The Chamois - 3/5
Not After Midnight - 3.5/5
The Old Man - 5/5
The Birds - 4/5
April 13, 2010
Aka, the fine art of storytelling. Nine mostly longish short stories ranging from the delicate, wistful fantasy of “The Pool” to the growing apocalyptic fear of the classic “The Birds.” Other favorites include the also-classic “Don’t Look Now” with its still-shattering conclusion, the dark humor of “The Blue Lenses,” the morbid “Kiss Me Again, Stranger,” and the shortest tale here, “The Old Man,” which concludes in such a surprising fashion I had to go back and reread a few pages just to see how DuMaurier, a real master, managed to completely hoodwink her readers. ***1/2 out of *****
June 5, 2017
Short stories from Daphne du Maurier... this and "The Breaking Point", which I read at the same time (and had some of the same stories included) were fast reads and some were better than others. The Birds was fantastic - very different and I feel more convincing, creepy and thought-provoking than the movie - Not After Midnight was bizarre and spooky, as was The Apple Tree and Kiss Me Again, Stranger. I enjoyed both books but they felt far removed from the novels I've read from her.
October 14, 2022
I don't know if I'll ever be able to say enough about the excellence of this author. Daphne du Maurier must be one of the most underrated writers I have ever come across. Though I don't know much about her personal life other than the fact that she came from a fairly well-to-do environment and was naturally reclusive, in reading her works, I discover a highly sensitive spirit who sees what most of us would not want to talk about in polite society: our insecurities, overthinking, rationalizations, and living a double life with the interior life far more tumultuous than the exterior. With brilliant insight and exquisite skill in narration, Maurier makes these short stories, however unpleasant and scary at moments, real works of art.
November 2, 2022
Somehow these stories didn't do much for me in this format, though I've enjoyed several of them before in written form. While the narrator is very clear and does a reasonably good job, his terribly posh voice just doesn't feel right for this collection, and his attempts at accents, especially American, are pretty poor. I also find that now I've read a lot of the great classic horror writers, Miss du Maurier doesn't seem quite so original or spine-tingling as she did when I first encountered her. In the end I found the stories weren't holding my attention, so gave up halfway through the fourth.
February 26, 2015
the stories contained in this collection was ok.
August 17, 2019
The more you have to fill in things with your imagination the more chilling and creepy something gets. Du Maurier is the mistress of setting an atmosphere of creeping dread that stays with you for a bit.
August 31, 2020
I really liked this collection of short stories. I was not aware that she wrote the book that inspired Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.
October 31, 2021
I have already read quite a few books by Daphne du Marier, and she never disappoints, I think she has a pleasant writing style. Her stories have no run-up, when the story starts I am immediately involved.
As usually with a collection of short stories, one story was better than the other. But overall I liked them.
As usually with a collection of short stories, one story was better than the other. But overall I liked them.
October 9, 2021
It’s been a while since I’ve read anything of Daphne Du Maurier’s. Her short stories are hit or miss for me. Nonetheless, I love her writing.
August 15, 2023
Mediocre can borne brilliance.. and this was exactly that. Mediocre. The fact it was the premise for the likes of Hitchcock's work just further elevates his work.
July 4, 2016
This is Du Maurier in her uncanny and supernatural mode.
Three of the stories, “Don’t Look Now”, “The Pool” and “The Blue Lenses”, have to do with visions of the protagonists, a bereaved father on holiday in Venice with his wife, an adolescent girl, and a woman recovering from eye surgery. The question for the characters and the reader is to what extent the visions correspond to objective reality and to what extent they might be a sign of mental instability. “The Apple Tree” is a more or less traditional ghost story, though the revenant is entirely embodied in the tree of the title, or perhaps only in the guilty conscience of the protagonist. In “Kiss Me Again, Stranger” a car mechanic has a one night stand (of a sort) with an enigmatic femme fatale. “The Old Man”, the shortest story here, is a sort of riddle tale in which the unnamed narrator story describes characters and events which turn out to have a form and meaning that are completely different than the reader has been led to believe. “The Chamois” is the story of a hunter’s obsessive quest for a single type of game told by his cooperative but unsympathetic wife. In “Not After Midnight” an amateur painter on holiday in Greece unwittingly rents the chalet of a recently drowned archeologist and finds himself caught up in unraveling the story of his predecessor’s fate. The collection ends with “The Birds”, the basis for the Hitchcock film, and a very terse version of a John Wyndham-like catastrophe story. Unlike Wyndham, Du Maurier does not give the reader a neat denouement, offering an unresolved ending, which, other than the idea of the avian attacks themselves and the image of a farmhouse and its occupants destroyed by the birds, is all that is carried over into the film. The story itself is set entirely on a farm and a neighboring cottage in southern coastal England, familiar Du Maurier territory, and follows a single character, a local farmhand with a wife and two children, as he attempts to deal with the sudden rebellion of the birds. The universal nature of the catastrophe is only hinted at by a kind of synecdoche: the silence of the radio and the distant sound of aircraft crashing, heard the during the night.
Du Maurier’s prose in this collection varies from the overly poetic evocations of “The Pool” to the straightforward first person masculine narrative of “Kiss Me again, Stranger”; the sheer range of styles presented here is impressive and makes it possible to read the collection straight through without a feeling of surfeit. I’d highly recommend “Don’t Look Now” (also made into a very good film), “The Blue Lenses”, and “The Birds” to fans of supernatural fiction, though the entire collection is worthwhile in showing the versatility of this author.
Three of the stories, “Don’t Look Now”, “The Pool” and “The Blue Lenses”, have to do with visions of the protagonists, a bereaved father on holiday in Venice with his wife, an adolescent girl, and a woman recovering from eye surgery. The question for the characters and the reader is to what extent the visions correspond to objective reality and to what extent they might be a sign of mental instability. “The Apple Tree” is a more or less traditional ghost story, though the revenant is entirely embodied in the tree of the title, or perhaps only in the guilty conscience of the protagonist. In “Kiss Me Again, Stranger” a car mechanic has a one night stand (of a sort) with an enigmatic femme fatale. “The Old Man”, the shortest story here, is a sort of riddle tale in which the unnamed narrator story describes characters and events which turn out to have a form and meaning that are completely different than the reader has been led to believe. “The Chamois” is the story of a hunter’s obsessive quest for a single type of game told by his cooperative but unsympathetic wife. In “Not After Midnight” an amateur painter on holiday in Greece unwittingly rents the chalet of a recently drowned archeologist and finds himself caught up in unraveling the story of his predecessor’s fate. The collection ends with “The Birds”, the basis for the Hitchcock film, and a very terse version of a John Wyndham-like catastrophe story. Unlike Wyndham, Du Maurier does not give the reader a neat denouement, offering an unresolved ending, which, other than the idea of the avian attacks themselves and the image of a farmhouse and its occupants destroyed by the birds, is all that is carried over into the film. The story itself is set entirely on a farm and a neighboring cottage in southern coastal England, familiar Du Maurier territory, and follows a single character, a local farmhand with a wife and two children, as he attempts to deal with the sudden rebellion of the birds. The universal nature of the catastrophe is only hinted at by a kind of synecdoche: the silence of the radio and the distant sound of aircraft crashing, heard the during the night.
Du Maurier’s prose in this collection varies from the overly poetic evocations of “The Pool” to the straightforward first person masculine narrative of “Kiss Me again, Stranger”; the sheer range of styles presented here is impressive and makes it possible to read the collection straight through without a feeling of surfeit. I’d highly recommend “Don’t Look Now” (also made into a very good film), “The Blue Lenses”, and “The Birds” to fans of supernatural fiction, though the entire collection is worthwhile in showing the versatility of this author.
August 25, 2012
I took out this book, a collection of short horror/weird fiction by Daphne du Maurier, on library loan.
Two stories I highly recommend are:
"The Birds"
This story was adapted into the famous Hitchcock movie. But there are major differences between the two. The original story takes place in Great Britain, and it is a family under attack by birds. And it is implied that this is just one battle in the world-wide struggle between the human race and the berserker birds. The original story is better than the movie, in my honest opinion.
"Don't Look Now"
This story was adapted into a film made by Nicholas Roeg, starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. This might be the case of a fine story adapted into an excellent film. A couple is vacationing in Venice, trying to work out the death of their young daughter, but uncanny, occult events intervene.
Two stories that are worth reading:
"Kiss Me Again, Darling"
A story that has elements of romance, noir, and naturalistic horror. A young man is attracted to a movie theater usherette, but then realizes she is a serial killer of a certain type of man. I recently discovered that a TV episode based on this story was made decades ago.
"The Blue Lenses"
A Twilight Zone-style story. In this story, a woman undergoes an operation on her eyes, and has to wear lenses. With these lenses, everyone she sees has the head of an animal--and the animal head is reflective of the nature of the person. For example, a nurse has the head of a snake; the woman's husband has the head of a vulture. (Others look more benign, such as a cow and a fish). The story has a 'twist' ending.
The other stories in this book didn't grab me.
Two stories I highly recommend are:
"The Birds"
This story was adapted into the famous Hitchcock movie. But there are major differences between the two. The original story takes place in Great Britain, and it is a family under attack by birds. And it is implied that this is just one battle in the world-wide struggle between the human race and the berserker birds. The original story is better than the movie, in my honest opinion.
"Don't Look Now"
This story was adapted into a film made by Nicholas Roeg, starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. This might be the case of a fine story adapted into an excellent film. A couple is vacationing in Venice, trying to work out the death of their young daughter, but uncanny, occult events intervene.
Two stories that are worth reading:
"Kiss Me Again, Darling"
A story that has elements of romance, noir, and naturalistic horror. A young man is attracted to a movie theater usherette, but then realizes she is a serial killer of a certain type of man. I recently discovered that a TV episode based on this story was made decades ago.
"The Blue Lenses"
A Twilight Zone-style story. In this story, a woman undergoes an operation on her eyes, and has to wear lenses. With these lenses, everyone she sees has the head of an animal--and the animal head is reflective of the nature of the person. For example, a nurse has the head of a snake; the woman's husband has the head of a vulture. (Others look more benign, such as a cow and a fish). The story has a 'twist' ending.
The other stories in this book didn't grab me.
April 12, 2015
Don't Look Now - ★★★★ Intriguing psychological suspense
The Apple Tree - ★★★★ Weird, in the best possible way, reminded me of something Hitchcock would have done on his TV show
The Pool - ★★★
The Blue Lenses ★★★★
Kiss Me Again, Stranger ★★★★ Very enjoyable, lightly creepy story (in the best way) with a surprise ending
The Chamois ★★ OK story of an emotionally unattached married couple on a hunting trip
Not After Midnight ★★★★ The solitary nature of the main character, Timothy Grey, called out to me loudly. He was a school teacher, who had a lifelong preference for his own company, eschewing contact with other people.
Wanting only to indulge in his passion for painting, he finds himself distracted by his neighbor's events. Despite his deep desire to be left alone -- not to even have people staying in cottages near his -- he observes, then spies on them. I enjoyed the intrigue and characters - great story, absolutely stands up decades later.
The Old Man ★★ An OK story with a bizarre ending that, to me, took away from the story, without a better explanation.
The Birds ★★★★★ Hitchcock based his film on this story. The details were different from the film's, which made it much scarier.
The Apple Tree - ★★★★ Weird, in the best possible way, reminded me of something Hitchcock would have done on his TV show
The Pool - ★★★
The Blue Lenses ★★★★
Kiss Me Again, Stranger ★★★★ Very enjoyable, lightly creepy story (in the best way) with a surprise ending
The Chamois ★★ OK story of an emotionally unattached married couple on a hunting trip
Not After Midnight ★★★★ The solitary nature of the main character, Timothy Grey, called out to me loudly. He was a school teacher, who had a lifelong preference for his own company, eschewing contact with other people.
Wanting only to indulge in his passion for painting, he finds himself distracted by his neighbor's events. Despite his deep desire to be left alone -- not to even have people staying in cottages near his -- he observes, then spies on them. I enjoyed the intrigue and characters - great story, absolutely stands up decades later.
The Old Man ★★ An OK story with a bizarre ending that, to me, took away from the story, without a better explanation.
The Birds ★★★★★ Hitchcock based his film on this story. The details were different from the film's, which made it much scarier.
February 13, 2011
Echoes from the Macabre by Daphne du Maurier is a collection of short stories, many of which are also in the Don't Look Now collection. It was also the last book I read for the Tuesday Book Reads twitter book club. I'm just too busy with schoolwork to keep up with a weekly reading schedule.
The stand out story though in the collection is "The Birds." While the Hitchcock film is set in California, the original is set in England, in a rural village miles from anything. That isolation combined with the relentlessness of the birds makes for a nail-biter of a story. Although it's not specifically science fiction it is reminiscent of dystopian fiction.
I enjoyed the book, both for the new to me stories and for the re-reads from Don't Look Now, such as "Don't Look Now" and "Not After Midnight."
The stand out story though in the collection is "The Birds." While the Hitchcock film is set in California, the original is set in England, in a rural village miles from anything. That isolation combined with the relentlessness of the birds makes for a nail-biter of a story. Although it's not specifically science fiction it is reminiscent of dystopian fiction.
I enjoyed the book, both for the new to me stories and for the re-reads from Don't Look Now, such as "Don't Look Now" and "Not After Midnight."
August 4, 2019
Du Maurier is a master of suspense (in fact the woman who wrote the books and stories behind some of Hitchcock's best films.)
The creeping horror of "Not after Midnight" is one of my favorite macabre stories of all time, along with the genius "Don't Look Now", made into a (in my opinion, classic) film that does a remarkable job of capturing the arcane and ineffable horror and dread of the story.
The quiet, chilly atmosphere of her stories can be difficult to find anywhere but between her lines, but I understand the great inspiration to film so much of her work. Still angry at Hitchcock for approaching her as a "ghost client" to option Rebecca, and leading her to accept less.
The creeping horror of "Not after Midnight" is one of my favorite macabre stories of all time, along with the genius "Don't Look Now", made into a (in my opinion, classic) film that does a remarkable job of capturing the arcane and ineffable horror and dread of the story.
The quiet, chilly atmosphere of her stories can be difficult to find anywhere but between her lines, but I understand the great inspiration to film so much of her work. Still angry at Hitchcock for approaching her as a "ghost client" to option Rebecca, and leading her to accept less.
August 2, 2022
I first read The Birds in sixth grade. It opened a short story collection I'd found in my school library and gave me nightmares. It continues to chill me over twenty years later.
Favorites in this collection:
"Don't Look Now"
"The Apple Tree"
"The Pool"
"The Blue Lenses"
and of course
"The Birds"
Favorites in this collection:
"Don't Look Now"
"The Apple Tree"
"The Pool"
"The Blue Lenses"
and of course
"The Birds"
August 11, 2015
This was a mixed bag of short stories, some lame, some weird, some very good, one world class. The best of the bunch was 'The Birds' I loved Hitchcock's adaptation of this story, but du Maurier's is far creepier, full of apocalyptic foreboding.
November 20, 2014
Meh. Read it for The Birds & maybe Don't Look Now if you've never read that before, and then save some time by stopping there.
April 28, 2011
Re-read. Contains one of my favorite short stories ever: "The Old Man."
May 28, 2018
A wonderful collection of page-turning suspense with a hint of Twilight Zone.
July 2, 2021
Just what I wanted! Perfect bite sized chunks of Daphne perfection. I've listened to this and have to say the narration by Valentine Dyall Is just perfect. The Birds scared me!
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