the book of poems
The book of poems is a slim, well-worn volume that Maxim de Winter carries in his car during his courtship of the second Mrs de Winter in Monte Carlo. It is the first physical object that connects the narrator directly to Rebecca de Winter, and its discovery marks a turning point in the narrator's emotional journey, introducing the shadow of the first wife that will come to dominate her experience at Manderley.
Discovery and First Reading
After their afternoon drive to the hills above Monte Carlo, the second Mrs de Winter finds the book in the pocket of Maxim's car. She notices it is "well worn, well thumbed, falling open automatically at what must be a much-frequented page" . The poem that opens before her is Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven," with its lines about fleeing from a pursuing divine presence: "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; / I fled Him, down the arches of the years; / I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways / Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears / I hid from Him, and under running laughter." The narrator feels "like someone peering through the keyhole of a locked door" and lays the book aside furtively, sensing she has stumbled upon something private and painful in Maxim's inner life.
The Inscription and Its Meaning
When the narrator opens the book to the title page, she reads the dedication: "'Max— from Rebecca. 17 May', written in a curious slanting hand" . A small blob of ink mars the opposite white page, "as though the writer, in impatience, had shaken her pen to make the ink flow freely." The name "Rebecca" stands out "black and strong, the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters." This inscription transforms the book from a mere volume of poetry into a relic of Rebecca's intimacy with Maxim. The narrator immediately shuts the book "with a snap" and hides it under her gloves, but the image of that bold handwriting stays with her, and she begins to imagine Rebecca writing it, perhaps as a birthday gift, and the couple laughing together as Maxim unwrapped it.
The Narrator's Destruction of the Inscription
After Maxim proposes to her, the narrator returns to her hotel room and finds the book of poems beside her bed. She hears a demonic whisper urging her to open the title page again. When she does, the inscription "Max from Rebecca" seems alive, "just as if it had been written yesterday." In a desperate act of symbolic erasure, she takes her nail scissors and cuts the page out of the book, "looking over her shoulder like a criminal" . She tears the page into fragments and throws them into the waste-paper basket, but the ink still stands out "thick and black" on the scraps. Unable to bear even that trace, she takes a box of matches and sets fire to the fragments, watching the flame "staining the paper, curling the edges, making the slanting writing impossible to distinguish." The letter R is the last to go, "twisting in the flame, curling outwards for a moment, becoming larger than ever" before crumpling into "feathery dust." She washes her hands afterward, feeling "better, much better," as though she has cleansed herself and begun a new year. This ritual destruction of the inscription is the narrator's first active attempt to erase Rebecca's presence and claim her own place as Mrs de Winter.
Thematic Significance
The book of poems functions as a material link between the living and the dead, a tangible object through which Rebecca's personality and her intimate connection with Maxim intrude upon the narrator's new marriage. The poem's theme of pursuit—the hound of heaven chasing the fleeing soul—echoes Maxim's own haunted state and the inescapable past that drives him. The narrator's act of burning the inscription foreshadows her later struggle against Rebecca's ghost and her eventual realization that she cannot destroy the past by destroying its physical traces. The book remains a potent symbol of the rivalry between the two Mrs de Winters, a rivalry that is not resolved until the truth about Rebecca's death and illness is finally revealed.
