5 great LITERARY HOMES
1. Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier, 1938.
WHAT: “The book will be about the influence of a first wife [Rebecca, who drowns in a sailing accident] on a second,” wrote Daphne Du Maurier of the masterpiece. “Until wife two is haunted day and night.”
WHY: Manderley is the ancestral home of widower Maxim de Winter, who proposes by growling: “No, I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool!” But the spirit of Rebecca remains, infused in the creepy Gothic masonry.
2. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, 1936.
WHAT: Vivien Leigh sealed the deal to play Scarlett O’Hara in the 1939 film of the book, and received an Oscar, but the novel was already a star. Set during the Civil War, this love story was an immediate US bestseller and remains in the top five favourite books with American readers.
WHY: Cotton plantation Tara is ruined, but after her mother dies, eldest daughter Scarlett takes on back-breaking work to save the house.
3. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, 1945.
WHAT: On the surface it’s a tale about a poor Cambridge undergraduate, Charles Ryder, being swept up by the rich Flyte family and flamboyant son, Sebastian. But behind all that, Waugh’s masterpiece looks at Catholicism, the British class system and an ancestral house where dear nanny represents “home”.
WHY: The hit 1981 UK television series catapulted Brideshead and its on-screen double, Castle Howard in York, to fame as the intoxicating family home.
4. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, 1978.
WHAT? From 1976 San Francisco Chronicle newspaper serial to a novel, to a TV mini-series, six tales were set in the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, San Francisco. Anna Madrigal is the unforgettable transgender landlady.
WHY: Maupin says he fantasised about creating “a fictional address that would become so real to people that they would go looking for it”. It was a haven for Maupin’s characters – those on the fringes, simply for being themselves.
5. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, 1991.
WHAT? Two families couldn’t be more different – the cheerful Lambs whose simple faith is shattered when their son, Fish, suffers brain damage; and the lazy Pickles, Mrs P, a man-mad drinker; Mr P, a reckless gambler.
WHY: The Pickles inherit a gloomy house in Cloud Street and take in the Lambs as lodgers. The house has history as a home for indigenous girls, uprooted from their families and mistreated, and their ghosts haunt the pages.