The Rendezvous and Other Stories

The collection “Rendezvous” by the English writer Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) includes stories written in the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as during the decade between 1937 and 1947. Like all of Du Maurier’s short fiction, these fourteen stories impress with the variety of plots and genres. The Gothic-tradition-tinged “The Escort” sits alongside theatrical pieces in the spirit of Chekhov—“The Prime” and “The Born Artist”; the psychological study “Behind Closed Doors” goes with a moral anecdote “A Mistake”; while works that play with the form of a fairy tale or parable—“The Most Holy Virgin,” “Adieu Sagesse,” and “A Fairy Tale”—stand beside sharp-satirical “Lover,” “Rendezvous,” and “Angels and Archangels.”

There are also Hitchcock-like, suspenseful tales characteristic of Du Maurier: “Panic,” “Without Visible Reason,” and “A Chance of a Second.”