Collection of personal letters and photographs from Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) to her close friend Pat Wallace Frere, wife of publisher Alexander Stuart Frere, comprising:

i) Series of 40 autograph letters, typed letters and postcards, signed ("Daph"), the first two to Alexander Frere giving her reasons for publishing her father's biography with Gollancz ("...so terribly sorry..."), the rest to Pat, the sequence beginning with her move to Menabilly, January 1944 ("...Believe it or not we are here!..."), much on the house ("... Menabilly is getting really exciting. Workmen in, and plumbers making the lavs function, and masons whistling..."), Cornwall in wartime ("...Fowey is black with Yanks...No drink in any pub – they've swallowed it all... Kits found a French letter in the garden. We family live in stirrin' times... I wouldn't mind a bit of lassoing myself, but how and where?... Oh! Let's have a rich lunch at the Savoy and get pasted!..."), on trips to London including a night out with Carol Reed ("...woke at 8 with the hangover of all time..."), on the set of Hungry Hill ("...they're all afraid of the author..."), on film adaptations ("...If you see nice George Cukor again, tell him I squirmed with shame at what they did to Rachel in the films... My dialogue may be bad but its not as bad as that!... very slow and dull, and not one word of mine in it..."), her writing ("...one called The Blue Lenses... very unpleasant indeed!... a new book... all about Italy... rather sinister and fun..."), fan mail ("...individual replies from my charming self – the things I do for England..."), a TV appearance ("...my aim was not to look like Barbara Cartland!..."), much on their respective children ("...I was brooding about our daughters – Mouse and Flave – and thinking of their futures..."), their husbands and grandchildren ("...he is frankly rather a waster in some ways... The children, unruly, have just gone to school, which is probably a good thing..."), their friendship ("...our encounters are all too brief, but we manage to pick up where we left off..."), family news, gossip and reminiscences about mutual friends ("...All I can remember is the fun we had at Caux..."), touching on her depression, and much else, 112 pages, dust-staining, marks, small tears, 4to (254 x 203mm.) and smaller, Cannon Hall Cottage, Menabilly, Kilmarth, July 1934 to 5 October [19]84

ii) Group of over 20 photographs, including a studio portrait with her sister Angela, by Cecil Beaton, 162 x 210mm. and a press photograph of the image in reverse; head and shoulders portrait photograph by Dorothy Wilding, inscribed "Darling Pat from Daphne/ August 1930", 198 x 155mm.; two further portrait studies with studio stamp of Dorothy Wilding on reverse, 198 x 158mm. and smaller; various family snapshots; 13 photographs sent as Christmas cards, including views of Menabilly ("...feel exactly like Katherine Mansfield with a creaking right lung..."), Daphne with her children walking up from the beach inscribed "To Pat, Frere, and the Mice/ from all the Brownings/ Christmas 1947", with its equivalent taken in 1976, others depicting the children, Daphne's boat, and with her dogs in later life, many signed and inscribed, [c.1926 to 1980's]; with selection of press cuttings, etc.