Hungry Hill.

DU MAURIER, Daphne.

Item Number: 136009

London: Victor Gollancz, 1943.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author in the year of publication on the front free endpaper, “To Tod with love from Daphne Easter 1943.” The recipient, Maud Waddell worked as one of several governesses for the Du Maurier children and she is now regarded as having had an important formative influence on Daphne in particular. Waddell (or, “Tod” as she was nicknamed by the children after the Beatrix Potter character) was a strong, independently-minded woman who instilled in Du Maurier a passion for reading and encouraged her early writing. Writing in her memoirs, Du Maurier recounts some early influences from Waddell’s recommendations: “Wilde filled my reading hours, but a more lasting impression was made by the stories of Katherine Mansfield, introduced to me by Tod who had a brother in New Zealand, and I felt instinctively that if I could only one day in the distant future write some sketch that might compare, however humbly, to hers, I need not despair…” Waddell later became a close friend and confidant, and would even serve as governess for Du Maurier‘s own children many years later” (Du Maurier, Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer). Near fine in a very good dust jacket. An exceptional association.

"I tell you your mine will be in ruins and your home destroyed and your children forgotten . . . but this hill will be standing still to confound you." So curses Morty Donovan when Copper John Brodrick builds his mine at Hungry Hill. The Brodricks of Clonmere gain great wealth by harnessing the power of Hungry Hill and extracting the treasure it holds. The Donovans, the original owners of Clonmere Castle, resent the Brodricks' success, and consider the great house and its surrounding land theirs by rights. For generations the feud between the families has simmered, always threatening to break into violence. Hungry Hill tells the story of a deadly curse that afflicted an Irish family for a hundred years. It was the basis for the 1947 film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, starring Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price, and Cecil Parker with a screenplay by Terence Young and Daphne du Maurier.