Angela du Maurier

Angela du Maurier
Angela du Maurier in 1920
Born	Angela Busson du Maurier (1904-03-01)1 March 1904 London, England, UK
Died	5 February 2002(2002-02-05) (aged 97) London, England, UK
Pen name	Angela du Maurier
Occupation	Actress, writer
Nationality	British
Period	1939-1969
Notable works	Treveryan
Parents	Sir Gerald du Maurier (father) Muriel Beaumont (mother)
Relatives	Daphne du Maurier (sister) Jeanne du Maurier (sister) George du Maurier (grandfather) Comyns Beaumont (great uncle) Guy du Maurier (uncle) Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (aunt)

Angela du Maurier (1 March 1904 – 5 February 2002) was an English former actress and novelist who also wrote two volumes of autobiography, It's Only the Sister (1951) and Old Maids Remember (1965). Her sister was the novelist Daphne du Maurier, and her grandfather the writer and cartoonist George du Maurier.

Life

Cannon Hall, Hampstead, drawn by A.R. Quinton, 1911, the family home in London from 1916.

Angela du Maurier was born on 1 March 1904 in St Pancras, London, the eldest of three daughters of the actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel Beaumont . Her paternal grandfather was the author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the novel Trilby. Her paternal uncle Guy du Maurier was a playwright. Her mother was a paternal niece of journalist, author, lecturer, and editor Comyns Beaumont. Her middle sister, Daphne, became a popular writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter. She was also a cousin of the Llewelyn Davies boys, who served as J. M. Barrie's inspiration for the characters in the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.

As a young child, du Maurier met many prominent theatre actors, thanks to the celebrity of her father. Originally aspiring to follow the family tradition of acting, she planned to be an actress and spent two seasons on the stage. She played Wendy Darling alongside both Gladys Cooper and Dorothy Dickson as Peter Pan. She worked on the land in Cornwall during the war and travelled extensively in Europe.

She later turned to writing, with the release of her earlier works coinciding with the publication of her sister's Rebecca and Frenchman's Creek. She published 12 novels and 2 autobiographies.

She lived at Ferryside, the family house in Cornwall, for most of her life. She died in Wandsworth, London, aged 97. Although three years older than her better known sister Daphne, she outlived her by thirteen years.

Bibliography

• 1939 The Perplexed Heart
• 1940 The Spinning Wheel
• 1941 The Little Less
• 1942 Treveryan
• 1946 Lawrence Vane
• 1948 Birkinshaw and other stories
• 1950 Reveille
• 1951 It's Only the Sister: an autobiography
• 1952 Shallow Waters
• 1963 The Road to Leenane
• 1965 Old Maids Remember: autobiography
• 1967 Pilgrims by the Way
• 1967 S is for Sin
• 1969 The Frailty of Nature

Further reading

• Williams, Michael The Three du Maurier Sisters. Polperro Heritage Press ISBN 978-0-9570481-1-9