DU MAURIER DAPHNE: (1907-1989) British Author. T.L.S., Daphne, six pages, 8vo, Menabilly, Par, Cornwall, 30th December 1967, to 'My dear' (Foy Quiller-Couch). Du Maurier writes a largely social letter to her friend following Christmas, thanking her for a large casserole tureen, 'which is being used this minute by Tessa and Flavia in the kitchen…to cook a Hot-Pot of turkey legs and veg mixed - the smells from the kitchen, and casserole, very good indeed' and further writing 'Our Christmas has been a good one, whether the last here or not I cannot foretell, it must surely depend on how long it takes to finish Kilmarth…I don't want to move from here until everything is ready. On the other hand neither do I want to have two ready-to-occupy houses on my hands, both needing to be heated. We shall see'. Du Maurier continues, referring to her work, 'I must now see how the turkey stew is brewing. Talking of brewing, I am turning my thoughts to a story about Tywardreath, the Priory, the Lord of the Manor, etc, in the fourteen hundreds (1330 approx) and am doing quite a bit of research on subject. Another Mr. Clampish type, a Mr. Thomas of Old Cornwall Society in Tywardreath, is being very helpful, and has lent me a glorious full scale tithe map of Tywardreath which is proving a boon. It gives the names of the old Priory lands, and all the fields, etc, and shows where the sea came to, and many other things, and I find it absorbing. What is very interesting is that the Carminow family of Carminow and Trelowarren before the days of the Vyvyans, were very connected with the manor of Tywardreath, and I am hoping to sort it all out. I am very intrigued by a young woman called Isolda who married Sir Oliver Carminow, as his second wife, and he seems to have had a clandestine marriage to a 3rd down in your Mawgan. Their estates were all down there, but a great finger in the Tywardreath pie. As to the Priory, it was full of dissolute monks from Angers, who kept on being reprimanded by the Bishop of Exeter. I wonder if your father ever felt himself drawn to that moment of time in local history, but I can't think, off-hand, of any book of his that dealt with it. Correct me if I am wrong. I have never studied it hitherto but am deep in it now. Period, Edward II, and then early Edward III and The Black Death'. She concludes with an amusing anecdote, 'You know the “mincy“ builder Mr Pascoe at Kilmarth. We discovered a well in the basement the other day, and I told him it had probably been shut up since the Black Death, and that he must get a ladder and go down it and see if skeletons reposed at the bottom. He was very disconcerted, and to distract my attention put a lot of flowers in pots in the front porch and bowls of bulbs'. A few small, minor tape stains at the head of some pages, only very slightly affecting one word of text, and not the signature, otherwise VG
Foy Quiller-Couch - daughter of British writer Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944), and a life-long friend of Du Maurier. Indeed, Du Maurier was accompanied by Foy Quiller-Couch when she became inspired with the storyline for her novel Jamaica Inn. Some years previously the two ladies were staying at Jamaica Inn and went riding on Bodmin Moor. They became lost in bad weather conditions and apparently sheltered for some time in a derelict cottage on the moor but were eventually led back to Jamaica Inn by their horses.
The work to which Du Maurier refers to in the present letter is her novel The House on the Strand which was published in 1969. It is set in and around Kilmarth near the Cornish village of Tywardreath (which translates from the Cornish language as 'House on the Strand').
![R MORDEN: CAMBRIDGESHIRE, engvd map [1695], approx 16 1/2" x 14"](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/35928e56-c39d-473d-a5b1-a43600ca4625/0a640011-462e-47ad-8451-b14799dffd1e/468x382.jpg)
