And with this finished, so is Project Daphne...

This was a great collection to round out this adventure. The last story makes me think Daphne was very aware of what her mental faculties would be for the next decade.

A series of short and not so short stories that are a very wide range. There is mystery in here, at times of a detective type, at others of a supernatural type. They all have a twist in there somewhere. Those I enjoyed the most were the first, a detective is set out to discover why a young pregnant wife suddenly commits suicide, and one where a ship in the North Sea in WW2 encounters a submarine and an escort. All the stories are worth reading, and while some are better than others, there are no real clunkers in the collection.

I listened to this, read by Edward da Souza, who has a very pleasant reading voice. Heartily recommended! ( )

Since finishing this collection last night, I've changed my mind - 3, not 2 stars.

Du Maurier's short stories are - for the most part of this collection at least - just not as engaging and atmospheric as her novels.
I think it's mostly because there is such a difference in quality between the stories, maybe partly because they are ranging from early works to some later ones.

I loved the first and the last story ("No Motive" and "Split Second") and enjoyed "Panic" and "Adieu Sagesse", but the rest of the stories didn't appeal to me and some just were a bit bland.
( )

The blurb tells us that the "fourteen haunting stories collected here span the whole of Daphne du Maurier's writing career", when in fact Minette Walters in the Introduction to this selection of short stories informs us that all but several were written before 1931, when du Maurier published her first novel, and the rest between 1937 and 1947, when she was in her thirties, so all of them can be considered to be written fairly on in her career.

I have to admit that I didn't get on with the stories at all: all but one have at its heart weak or unlikeable characters (sometimes both), and to me they felt on the whole contrived, predictable, and often lacking in tension, atmosphere and genuine surprises, with only occasionally a well-aimed stab at small-mindedness, pettiness, hypocrisy, class snobbery and prejudice; these stabs are the more effective because they are understated, and not spelled out in capital letters as are some of the climaxes. (I guess this is where her relative inexperience is most noticeable, as if she didn't trust herself to spell out the conclusion clearly enough or the reader to draw the obvious parallels.) The stories I liked the most were "The Escort", which is more mature and atmospheric than the others and a complete thematic departure (told in the first person, with a nautical theme during war time) from the rest of the collection, along with "Split Second", which is atmospheric and intriguing and held my interest, with the protagonist's emotional turmoil portrayed very effectively, even though it was to a degree predictable and not entirely convincing.

Minette Walters praises the collection because in her opinion they already show immense maturity for someone so young; I don't agree. In the Introduction, Daphne du Maurier is quoted as saying that the early ones (i.e. short stories) especially showed something of her development as a writer; as this they may be of interest, but I think I prefer her later work. ( )

Quattordici racconti che catturano il lettore dalla prima all'ultima pagina. Vizi, passioni, paure sono al centro delle vicende narrate, arricchite da un pizzico di suspence, da un velo sottile di mistero. Grande scrutatrice dell'animo umano, la Du Maurier è una scrittrice da riscoprire e apprezzare.