The only thing Gerald didn't like about the play was the title, so they agreed to change the name to The Ringer, and work began. Wallace had written a novel called The Gaunt Stranger, which he had adapted into a play, and he wanted Gerald's help in getting it onto the stage. Unexpectedly, he was contacted by the famous novelist Edgar Wallace with a proposal that was too good to refuse.

His lease at Wyndham's was coming to an end, and he was on the verge of making some changes, including a move to the St James's Theatre. However, he was at a point in his career when he was beginning to feel his age. Gerald was a Matinee Idol, surrounded by celebrity friends, Muriel, his wife, who pampered him and three daughters, Angela, Daphne and Jeanne, whom he adored.

For years he had been able to do no wrong. Gerald du Maurier was an established and hugely successful actor-manager at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. That review does include a résumé of the storyline, so if you want to remind yourself about the story or to read that review (bearing in mind that it contains spoilers), click here: I reviewed The Loving Spirit for this website back in 2002. We have made a point of not telling you the storyline of The Loving Spirit in this article, so that people who have not yet read the book can still enjoy the surprises that unfold in this saga. She described the sights and sounds, the smells and the weather, so much of which still the same today, giving the book a timelessness that means it never becomes dated and always offers more each time we read it. Even as a novice writer Daphne was able to conjure up the atmosphere of life in the boat building harbour of Fowey.

We tell you how the Slade family and their boatyard's real story came to be written into Daphne du Maurier's first novel and what Daphne's life was like at the time she was writing it. In this article, written to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the publication of The Loving Spirit, we take a look at the du Maurier family in the late 1920s and how the advent of Ferryside, as the du Maurier's holiday home, gradually altered the dynamics of Daphne's life. The moment had come for her to begin her first novel, and on 23rd February 1931, that novel was published. On 3rd October 1929, Daphne du Maurier sat down at her desk in her bedroom at Ferryside, took a fresh piece of paper, and wrote The Loving Spirit at the top of the page in clear, bold writing. The Loving Spirit, Daphne du Maurier's first novel, celebrates its 90th anniversary in 2021

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