rule britannia [Hardcover]

daphne du maurier (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Unknown (1969)
• ASIN: B002MZTU7K
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Daphne du Maurier was born in 1906 and educated at home and in Paris. She began writing in 1928, and many of her bestselling novels were set in Cornwall, where she lived for most of her life. She was made a DBE in 1969 and died in 1989.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Orwell meets Cold Comfort Farm, March 25, 2006

By 

Jeremy Gilien (Los Angeles,CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rule Britannia (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

After reading The Scapegoat, and The Flight of the Falcon, set in France and Italy respectively, it is good to be back on familiar Cornish ground with this good-humored yet pointed and poignant work. However, Travanel and its inhabitants are a world removed from the Gothic romance of Manderley or Jamaica Inn. This, Du Maurier's final novel, comes across more as an Orwellian style cautionary tale set in Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm. While her usual bounds of propriety are never overstepped, she doesn't shrink away from the occasional vulgarity; the bits where the youngest boys in the adopted family are learning to use profanities by way of faltering Spoonerisms are actually charming; and the acronym for the United States teamed with the United Kingdom - USUK - has been appropriated as an epithet by a younger generation(at least in America). Though the mood of hi jinks and good humor is maintained throughout the novel, many serious ethical and political issues are touched upon. It's a pity that this very enjoyable, extremely well-written, and still quite topical book isn't better known!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Wasted Premise, March 25, 2005

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rule Britannia (Hardcover)

I generally read about 100-150 books a year, and of that, there are usually only two or three I don't finish. This is one of them. I picked this up intrigued by the Du Maurier name and the premise of a union between the United States and United Kingdom. Alas, around halfway through this last of Du Maurier's seventeen novels, I realized I was bored to distraction by the tepidness of the satire and generally lackluster prose. The story is set contemporarily (it was published in 1972), and like so many of her works, in Cornwall. The idea is that a former stage actress of some repute and wealth has retired to a large mansion where she has taken in a series of orphan children, allowing them a great deal of freedom to develop their imaginations. To a certain extent, this character seems semi-autobiographical, and the way the children are raised parallels her own relatively unrestrained upbringing. One day the household arises to discover American planes flying overhead, marines landing on the shores near the house, and an announcement of a political union between the U.S. and U.K. This is apparently in response to some kind of European Unionish fiasco that is left to the reader's imagination. The real point seems to be that Britons will never never never become slaves, nor even the little brother to America's big brother. The household's first sighting of the Americans occurs when a nervous Marine shoots a neighbors beloved dog, which sets the standard for the subtlety of satire. Soon, the elderly lady is predictably leading a local revolt against the occupation, American soldiers are brawling with locals over girls, and so on. The problem is that the Du Maurier can't seem to decide if the story is supposed to be a satire, a farce, cautionary, realistic, or what. And since none of the characters were developed enough or interesting enough to care about, I realized my time might be better spent reading something else.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alternative history of England, October 28, 2009

By 

thereadaholic (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rule Britannia (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

One of Daphne du Maurier's lesser-known books, Rule Britannia envisages an alternate history of England in the 1970s. In this alternate universe, plunged into economic depression and soaring unemployment, England decides not to join the European Economic Community (forerunner to the European Union). Its residents wake up one day to find communications cut, an American warship in the harbour, US marines setting up roadblocks and news that Britain was joining forces with the United States to form the USUK.

A group of Cornish villagers becomes increasingly unhappy with the take-over of their land and start a shadowy rebellion, centring on an 80-year-old former actress, his brood of adopted troubled boys and her neighbours. The story is told through the eyes of her 20-year-old grand-daughter. A fascinating read.