About this title: One of Daphne du Maurier's four Cornish novels, this is a haunting tale set on desolate Bodmin Moor a century-and-a-half ago. Mary Yellan, recently orphaned, leaves her home at Helford to live with her aunt at Jamaica Inn. There she discovers fear, cruelty, smuggling and murder.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Pocket Books, New York
Date Published: 1967
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Pages tanned, text clean. There are a few minor corner folds, no torn or marked pages. Some soiling plus a couple small stains to edges. Cover has discoloration plus edge wear, corner creases and small tear. Ideal... 247 p. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 247 p. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Avon, Dresden, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780380725397ISBN:0380725398
Description: Very Good. 0380725398 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in very good condition, may have slight worn corners and varying degre..._ read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Pan Books Ltd, London
Date Published: 1976
ISBN-13:9780330246668ISBN:0330246666
Description: Fair. The cold walls of Jamaica Inn smelt of guilt and deceit. It's secrets made the very name a byword for terror among honest Cornish folks. 267 pp. Cover shelf worn, creased, wavey from water damage, and edges frayed. Interior worn and water damage has made it wavey also but the pages are tight in the bionding and clean. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday & Company
Date Published: 1936
Description: Poor in None jacket. Well used but still very readable. Lettering worn off spine, Insect damage to first 20 pages on the very bottom edge, about a 1/16 inch hole, does not interfere with text. Binding loose but intact. Unconditional money back guarantee. read more
Binding: Perfect Bound Paper
Publisher: Avon
Date Published: 1971
Description: Good + to Very Good-- No Jacket as Issued. Mass Market Paperback. 16mo-over 5¾"-6¾" tall. Corner crease front and back wrap lower corners. else VG to Near Fine. PON on FEP. Binding tight, pages clean though old store price penciled on FEP. (Store Display-Gen Fic/Romance) read more
"Once again another amazing novel by du Maurier. Her novels are not just classics but modern days wonders - weaving powerful women of different characters through dangerous, forboding and seductive situations. I don't think anyone could ask for more in a novel! (Well except fairies and vampires, but I except that these would be a little out of place on Daphne's Cornish moors). In Jamaica Inn Mary is a simple woman, used to her mothers lead, placed in the dangerous home of her uncle where her moral codes must outweigh her protection over her aunt in order to best the brute, and save herself. I love how du Maurier allows each lead character to come out of herself by the novels end, and shift away from their birth status inhibitions."
"Jamaica Inn is a true classic. After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan travels to Jamaica Inn on the wild British moors to live with her Aunt Patience. The coachman warns her of the strange happenings there, but Mary is committed to remain at Jamaica Inn. Suddenly, her life is in the hands of strangers: her uncle, Joss Merlyn, whose crude ways repel her; Aunt Patience, who seems mentally unstable and perpetually frightened; and the enigmatic Francis Davey. But most importantly, Mary meets Jem Merlyn, Joss's younger brother, whose kisses make her heart race. Caught up in the danger at this inn of evil repute, Mary must survive murder, mystery, storms, and smugglers before she can build a life with Jem. This book was OK. Not nearly as good as Rebecca, or other books by her I've read, but definitely good until the end. The ending was a little... Cliche, and I figured out who did the crime(s), but overall a good read for a rainy day."
"I read this book in three days, it was so gripping and entertaining.
Set in the early 1800's, but worlds away from Jane Austen's genteel society, Mary Yellen must live with her aunt after her mother dies. At 23 she's been used to living on a farm and can hold her own but never expected this. Her Aunt - a once lively woman - is now a broken down wife of an Innkeeper, Jamaica Inn. Her husband is a brute and tyrant and the company he keeps is the bottom of society. What goes on at Jamaica Inn is a mystery that Mary is trying to find out, and only then can she help her aunt escape this fate."
"Another fantastic book from du Maurier who, from the 3 books of hers that I've read to date (this, Rebecca, and Frenchman's Creek), seems incapable of writing anything less than brilliant. Master storyteller is, in her case, an extremely well deserved plaudit.
Mary Yellan, newly orphaned, comes to live with her Aunt & Uncle at Jamaica Inn, a place so forbidding that even the locals avoid it. Finding her Uncle a mean, brutal, drunken bully and her Aunt a shadow of her former self, Mary decides to stay on for her Aunt's sake - and soon the world gets even murkier.
All of the characters are well drawn, and Mary is another great heroine - feisty, intelligent and unafraid to stand up for herself and what's right, and her realism when it comes to relationships is rather refreshing. The moors and the inn are themselves almost living, breathing characters and, although I have an advantage in knowing the area (and indeed, having had a pint or two in the inn, though it's rather different these days), I could well imagine even those who have never set eyes on the place seeing it vividly through du Maurier's writing. Bleak and malevolent, the use of the landscape serves to heighten an already sky-high level of tension as the plot progresses.
It's really a pleasure reading books like this, where you're sucked so deeply into the world within that you find yourself barely pausing for breath as you devour the pages. I'll definitely be taking a trip back to Jamaica Inn now, so I can let my mind wander and imagine what it must have been like back when the coast of Cornwall was almost a law unto itself."
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