Du Maurier and her family lived in a comfortable world insulated from hardships. Most of du Maurier's youth was spent sailing, traveling with her friends, and writing stories, which a well-connected uncle shepherded into publication. Many see her charmed and relatively easy life as one of the reasons why du Maurier's writing is much more conventional than that of her contemporaries who were busy experimenting with avant-garde techniques such as stream-of-consciousness and who were writing on war and poverty.

In 1931, du Maurier published, to critical acclaim, her first novel, The Loving Spirit, a romantic family tale. The novel so impressed thirty-five-year-old Major Frederick Browning that he sailed a small boat past the du Maurier country home in an effort to meet the young author. Browning and du Maurier married in 1932, and in 1946 du Maurier became Lady Browning when her husband was knighted. She and Browning had...