On the threshold of dread: the menace of Manderley

Fear of crossing thresholds is central to Daphne du Maurier’s unsettling Gothic novel Rebecca, a new film version of which has just been released

Manderley in the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock movie version of ‘Rebecca’.

‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’ The famous opening sentence of Rebecca is pregnant with the importance and effect of the house called Manderley, the setting for Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, a best-seller which has…