Editors Reads Verdict
Du Maurier's most formally innovative novel uses a science-fiction premise to explore obsession with the past at its most literal and most self-destructive — a meditation on what it means to be more alive in a world that no longer exists than in the one that does.
What We Loved
- The dual-time structure is handled with impressive technical assurance
- The fourteenth-century Cornwall is rendered with historical richness and genuine imaginative conviction
- The novel's meditation on obsession is more formally inventive than anything else du Maurier wrote
- The consequences of the drug's use accumulate with a logic that is both scientific and psychological
Minor Drawbacks
- The contemporary sections are less vivid than the historical ones — by design, but this can make the framing feel thin
- Dick is not an especially sympathetic protagonist, which is the point but can be a barrier
- The science-fiction premise requires acceptance that du Maurier develops with less rigour than the atmospheric elements
Key Takeaways
- → Obsession with the past is not merely nostalgic but can become a form of contempt for the living
- → The appeal of history is partly the appeal of a world where the plot is already settled — where uncertainty has been replaced by fact
- → The drug as metaphor for escapism is more honest than most literary treatments of the same theme
- → Cornwall's relationship to its own past — the continuity of landscape across centuries — is one of du Maurier's persistent preoccupations
| Author | Daphne du Maurier |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Pages | 298 |
| Published | January 1, 1969 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction |
The House on the Strand Review
The House on the Strand — published in 1969, near the end of Daphne du Maurier’s career — is her most formally inventive novel and arguably her most psychologically acute. Du Maurier was sixty-one when she wrote it, and the novel has the qualities of late work: a willingness to experiment with form, a directness about its themes, and a melancholy that is not merely atmospheric but philosophically considered. It is not as well known as Rebecca, but it is in some respects a more interesting novel.
Dick Young, a London publisher between jobs, is staying at the Cornish home of his friend Magnus Lane, a biochemist who has been experimenting with a drug that allows its users to travel back in time. The time travel is one-way: Dick’s consciousness is projected into fourteenth-century Cornwall, where he can see and hear the people of that era but cannot interact with them. He watches a particular group of people — focused especially on Isolda, wife of a local lord — across a series of visits that begin as curiosity and become, with increasing speed, an obsession that starts to damage his relationships with his wife and children, his sense of his own present life, and eventually his physical health.
The novel works as science fiction in the sense that it takes its premise seriously and follows its consequences with consistency. But its real subject is the psychology of historical obsession — the particular pleasure of watching a world where the outcomes are already determined, where the uncertainty of living has been replaced by the clarity of the known past. Dick knows these fourteenth-century people cannot save themselves from what is coming; he watches their lives play out with the detachment of a god and the involvement of a voyeur. This combination is rendered with uncomfortable precision: the reader understands the appeal and is made to feel its costs simultaneously.
What gives the novel its late-career depth is the way du Maurier frames Dick’s obsession against his relationships with his wife and stepchildren. His contemporary life is presented as grey and compromised against the vivid aliveness of the past — but du Maurier is clear that this is Dick’s perception, not an objective fact. The fourteenth century is beautiful to him because it has no demands on him; the present is grey because it requires him to be present in ways he has chosen to avoid. The novel’s ending, in which the costs of this refusal accumulate to their logical conclusion, is among the most honest treatments of escapism in mid-twentieth-century fiction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "The House on the Strand" about?
Dick Young, staying at his friend's house in Cornwall, takes an experimental drug that sends him back to fourteenth-century Cornwall — where he becomes obsessed with the lives of a long-dead woman and her circle.
What are the key takeaways from "The House on the Strand"?
Obsession with the past is not merely nostalgic but can become a form of contempt for the living The appeal of history is partly the appeal of a world where the plot is already settled — where uncertainty has been replaced by fact The drug as metaphor for escapism is more honest than most literary treatments of the same theme Cornwall's relationship to its own past — the continuity of landscape across centuries — is one of du Maurier's persistent preoccupations
Is "The House on the Strand" worth reading?
Du Maurier's most formally innovative novel uses a science-fiction premise to explore obsession with the past at its most literal and most self-destructive — a meditation on what it means to be more alive in a world that no longer exists than in the one that does.
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