BOOK (1936)

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier Gollancz

Throngs of tourists descend annually on the county of Cornwall, the southwestern peninsula of Britain, in search of sun, sand and surf. But for many, the fascination lies in its craggy granite coastline and wind-swept moors, home for centuries to pirates who patrolled the shores, wrecking ships, murdering crews and smuggling their booty through secret tunnels and into public houses.

The stories are legend, and no one has ensured they live on for future generations more than author Daphne du Maurier. Born of blue blood and a niece of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, du Maurier was a prolific writer of biographies, plays and novels. Brought up in the beautiful yet bleak Cornish landscape, it's unsurprising that the scenery provided the inspiration for her best and most lauded work.

Her great pirate novel was Jamaica Inn, named after a pub and hostelry on the inhospitable Bodmin Moor, which remains to this day a popular tourist site. The book, set in the early 19th century, is as much a love story as it is an action-adventure tale. The plot has more twists and turns than a road along Cornwall's ragged coast. It revolves around the life of a young woman called Mary Yellan, who goes to visit her Uncle Joss, a giant drunkard who runs the inn.

Mary is curious to find that no guests ever stay there, and she gradually realises her uncle belongs to a gang of wreckers who prey on passing ships. She also falls for his younger brother, Jem, a small-time thief, and befriends the albino son of a local vicar. Their lives collide as her uncle is killed and the terrible truth emerges about the vicar and his druid beliefs. Du Maurier's attention to detail in the description of the Cornish scenery illuminates the devious depths of her characters, creating an eerie mood throughout. The pages are filled with sinister imagery that captures the growing sense of foreboding and danger felt by the innocent main protagonist.

Jamaica Inn endures today as a treasure of what was once part of Cornwall's way of life. Although fictional, the kind of events and characters du Maurier describes are rooted in real such events. In fact, visitors to the inn or other smugglers' towns will find fact hard to distinguish from fiction - such is the region's criminal history.