Angela, Daphne and Jeanne Du Maurier - three sisters in a family who longed for sons; beautiful, successful, rebellious or mad, the sisters lives were bound in a family drama that inspired Angela and Daphne's best novels. Much has been written about Daphne but here the three sisters' hidden lives are revealed in this riveting joint biography. Years after her death, Daphne Du Maurier is still one of the most-loved women writers of the twentieth century. And her mystique increases as more details of her life emerge including her love-hate relationship with her father, her obsession with houses, her confusions of identity, her erotic fantasies for other women, her reclusive personality. Daphne had it all. She was beautiful, famous, rich; married to a war-hero who gave her three children; her novels sold in their millions and won her many prizes. Yet she hated it all. Angela her older sister also wrote novels but was never regarded in the same light as the brilliant Daphne.

Everything Daphne had, she craved but never achieved. Jeanne, the youngest sister, was the only sister open about her homosexuality. a revered painter with work in both public and private collections. Jane Dunn's book is the first biography of all three sisters. By exploring the sister's lives and work in relation to each other opens up completely new horizons and perspectives for all three women. Born in the first decade of the twentieth century, all three girls shared a visceral love for Cornwall. The family was glamorous and successful and the girls were encouraged in ancestor worship. Their parents were charismatic, philandering and unhappy.

Their expectations for their girls, and the wish that they'd been boys, would have a lasting effect on all three girls. The story of these remarkable sisters is a grand family drama full of high society shenanigans, multiple neuroses, creative imagination, confused sexual identities, affection, rivalry and scorn. Their lives span the twentieth century and all three left behind them their distinctive viewpoints in novels, memoirs, letters and paint. The story of their lives and the forces that made them, and the bounds they tried to break, is as gripping and filmic as any of Daphne's remarkable novels. Best-selling author of Elizabeth and Mary Based on new research in unreleased Du Maurier papers Guaranteed massive review and feature coverage.