Pinpointing the literary influences and the first stirrings of books to be written in later years, this is Daphne du Maurier's story of her early life, in the years before she wrote her celebrated novels, "Rebecca", "Frenchman's Creek" and "Jamaica Inn". It is a relaxed evocation of her first 24 years, a world of famous names, of idyllic summers in Regent's Park and Hampstead, of dinner parties and flirtations, nocturnal excursions and grand winter holidays in Switzerland, Brittany and Paris - and the house by the river in Cornwall. The book provides clues to du Maurier's enigmatic personality and the passion for Menabilly and Cornwall that was to dominate her life.