Beyond Minerals

I hope mineral collectors realize the acquisition of mineral specimens is just one facet of our hobby. If you look beyond the specimens in your collection, you discover a vast and fascinating world of people and history.

- BOB JONES

This has influenced some of my travels as I sought to know more about the people whose minerals I studied while collecting.

DAPHNE DU MAURIER

A superb example of this is Daphne du Maurier. She is a famous English novelist whose books are classics including Rebecca and Jamaica Inn.

When Daphne was vacationing in Cornwall, she went fishing and saw on shore a huge grey stone mansion in the woods near the town of Par, Cornwall. She was told it was the home of the Rashleigh family who had left it and moved into a smaller house on the estate because they could not afford to live in the big mansion. It was still completely furnished as the family intended to move back in one day. She determined to visit the mansion called Menabilly and the next day she did.

When she got there, she sat on the lawn and wondered what stories such an old place could tell. On a second visit, Daphne broke into the old grey stone mansion and later described what she saw in detail in a newspaper article.

PENNING REBECCA

When she became a novelist she used what she had fantasized about while sitting on the lawn at Menabilly. The result was the classic novel Rebecca. In Rebecca, she called the old grey stone mansion Manderlay. But what is the connection between Du Maurier and mineral collecting?