Mary Anne

The books by English writer Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) have become classics of twentieth-century literature. Masterful at delicate psychological portraits and a virtuoso of intrigue, du Maurier, like no other, knows how to keep the reader on edge. No wonder one of her admirers was film director Alfred Hitchcock, who made famous thriller films based on her works: “Rebecca,” “The Birds,” “Jamaica Inn”… The novel “In Pursuit of Happiness, or Mary-Anne,” published between the famous books “My Cousin Rachel” and “The Goat by the Gallows”—when the author was at the peak of her form—was recognized as one of the best works by Daphne du Maurier. Immersing the reader in the atmosphere of nineteenth-century England, the author recreates the image of her eccentric great-great-grandmother and tells the story of her truly astonishing life, full of rises and falls. Mary-Anne had an incredible fate and an incredible character combining calculation and recklessness, trustfulness and cunning, sharp wit and kindness, fearlessness and promiscuity… She managed to escape the grim London slums, become a celebrated courtesan and the lover of the Duke of York, the brother of King George III, rise to heights of power, and then, getting entangled in a notorious corruption scandal and political intrigue, stake her future and her life…