Rebecca is a novel by English author Daphne du Maurier. A best-seller, there were 2,829,313 copies of Rebecca sold between its publication in 1938 and 1965, and the book has never gone out of print. The novel is remembered for the character Mrs. Danvers, the fictional estate Manderley, and its opening line:

While working as the companion to a rich American woman on holiday in Monte Carlo, the unnamed narrator, a naïve young woman in her early 20s, becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, Maximilian (Maxim) de Winter, a widower aged 42. After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him and, after the wedding and honeymoon, accompanies him to his mansion in Cornwall, the beautiful West Country estate Manderley.