SOURCE: "Still Dead after All These Years," in New York Times Book Review, November 7, 1993, p. 23.

Below, Billington compares Mrs. de Winter to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, finding the former derivative.

That fascinating author Ivy Compton-Burnett, when asked whether she had ever thought of writing a sequel to any of her novels, answered: "No. But then my novels end with a full stop, as it were." Part of the magic of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1938) is that it starts in the middle and finishes without a full stop, as it were. The temptation to continue such a publishing gold mine was obviously great.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." The famous first line to Rebecca sets the tone for what has the air of an elegiac dream itself, a long backward look. The story is told by the second Mrs. de Winter, recalling her arrival as...