After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan goes to live with her Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor. The isolation and wildness of the moor are so intertwined with the plotlines of fear, murder, theft, wrecking and intrigue you can feel the wind whipping around you as you read.
When published this novel sold more copies in the first three months than her first three novels altogether and it is easy to see why this is such an enduring book. Dark, mysterious and thoroughly absorbing.
March 2010 Guest Editor Susan Fletcher on Jamaica Inn...
For all its melodrama, cliches and romance, I will always have a secret love of this book. I was in my early teens when I found it, and felt utterly transported from my bedroom in the Midlands to the rainy wilderness of Bodmin Moor. No other book had done that before, and I was deeply impressed that words could provide such a complete and tangible other world.
I devoured the romance. I wanted to be Mary Yellan, trapped in her room, with Jem the handsome horse thief breaking the glass to be with her... Too wonderful for words! For all its overblown language and predictability, I remain a fan - and I know that it spurred on my own writing. I owe it a lot, I think.
On a bitter November evening, young Mary Yellan journeys across the rainswept moors to Jamaica Inn in honour of her mother's dying request. When she arrives, the warning of the coachman begins to echo in her memory, for her aunt Patience cowers before hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn. Terrified of the inn's brooding power, Mary gradually finds herself ensnared in the dark schemes being enacted behind its crumbling walls -- and tempted to love a man she dares not trust.
| Primary Genre | Family Drama |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
On a bitter November evening, young Mary Yellan journeys across the rainswept moors to Jamaica Inn in honour of her mother's dying request. When she arrives, the warning of the coachman begins to echo in her memory, for her aunt Patience cowers before hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn.
Jamaica Inn features in the following genres: Family Drama, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, General Fiction, Recommendations
Paperback, Hardback. Not Available.
Jamaica Inn was written by Daphne du Maurier and published by Little, Brown Book Group
Jamaica Inn has 302 pages
Yes it is part of Virago Modern Classics series
