In du Maurier’s world, the usual footholds by which sanity is maintained are always in danger of being kicked away by circumstance ... The best pieces in this collection stick closer to home and belong to a genre best described as 'domestic gothic' ... These stories have real heft and depth and will linger in the imagination well beyond the witching time of year.
Du Maurier was a mid-20th-century woman writer whose work didn’t always abide by conventional notions of femininity ... Du Maurier also wrote stories that blur the line between madness and the supernatural ... A radiant depiction of the idling, enchanted play of a child’s life, The Pool suggests why romantic isn’t an entirely alien adjective for du Maurier’s fiction—just not the kind of romantic that involves courtship and sexual love ... An expert invoker of atmosphere and environment. She often glazed her imagery with her characters’ nostalgic yearning ... These stories are the work of a protean, restless, and rather dangerous spirit with a decidedly pagan bent and a craving for solitude ... Wild at heart.
As wonderful as her novels are, [du Maurier] pushes her themes even further in her short stories and novellas ... Remarkable ... Du Maurier skillfully presents her main characters’ voices to readers without overruling their identities. Each tale has some twist towards the middle or end sure to take readers by surprise ... Stephen King’s appreciation/introduction to this edition is not to be missed ... Du Maurier’s stories have aged extraordinarily well and can still fill modern readers with dreadful unease. Libraries will not regret adding these tales to show patrons a different side to her writing.
