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Ratings: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Genre: Autobiography, Memoir, Biography, Literary Biography, Women's Writing, 20th Century Literature.

Book Review:
Daphne du Maurier's ''Myself When Young'' is a captivating and intimate portrait of the formative years of one of the 20th century's most beloved and enigmatic writers. Based on the diaries she kept from the age of sixteen to twenty-three, this memoir offers a rare and revealing glimpse into the making of the author of classics like Rebecca and Jamaica Inn.

This is not a conventional autobiography covering an entire life, but a focused exploration of youth and its shaping influence. Du Maurier writes with an openness that is sometimes painfully honest, chronicling her difficult relationship with her charismatic but demanding actor father, Sir Gerald du Maurier. She describes her education in Paris, her early, intense love affairs, and her deep antipathy towards the social whirl of London and the theatre world into which she was born.

Above all, the book is a love letter to Cornwall, the rugged, windswept landscape that became her true home and the vital source of inspiration for her most famous works. We see her desperate ambition to succeed as a writer, her struggles for independence, and the gradual emergence of the distinctive voice that would captivate millions.

Helen Taylor's introduction provides valuable context, situating the memoir within du Maurier's larger body of work and her enduring legacy. ''Myself When Young'' is an essential read for any admirer of du Maurier. It reveals the complex, passionate, and sometimes conflicted young woman behind the celebrated author, and illuminates the roots of her dark, romantic, and unforgettable fiction.