ABSTRACT
First published in 1938, at a time, that is, when capitalist society was experiencing one of the deepest crises in its history, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca 1 at first sight seems remarkable for its total lack of reference to anything that might even hint of that crisis. The simplest way of accounting for this would be to consign the text to the category of ‘escapist fiction’, a means of relief for people whose everyday experience was dominated by the reality of the depression. Another response would be to describe the text as likely to be read by those upon whom the realities of unemployment and deprivation would have had little impact. It is very difficult, now, to reconstruct a map of the possible readership of the novel, but that it was an immediate bestseller indicates that it is improbable that a simple pattern of readership along class lines could be produced. This would certainly be even more improbable for an analysis of the cinema audiences that saw the film version in 1941. Again, Daphne du Maurier was involved in ‘political’ activity in the 1930s and it could be argued that what she left out of Rebecca was contained in Come Wind, Come Rain, a collection of short stories and essays which articulated a solution to the current crisis in the terms of moral rearmament. When the film version of Rebecca was produced this publication was sold, fairly cheaply, in the foyers of various cinemas throughout Britain.
