One of Daphne du Maurier's earliest works was a history of her family, particularly of her grandfather George du Maurier, the Punch cartoonist and author of Trilby, and her father, the actor Gerald. But it was as a popular novelist that she would excel, and by the end of the 1930s Rebecca was a literary phenomenon, translated into 20 languages. Daphne's father was fiercely possessive of her, but at the age of 25 she married Boy Browning, then the youngest major in the British Army, and soon settled in the Cornish mansion which was featured in Rebecca and around which the plot of The King's General was constructed. Her sense of place and atmosphere and gift of story-telling ensured a succession of bestselling novels such as Jamaica Inn, Frenchman's Creek and My Cousin Rachel. After her husband's death she moved to another mansion which became the setting for The House on the Strand, and became increasingly removed from family and friends until her death. The author has written books on Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama. She knew Daphne du Maurier in the 1960s, has studied her novels and adapted The King's General for the theatre.