'The Little Photographer' is the story of a spoiled, rich Marquise who has an affair because she is bored. He vows to remove the tree, but never gets around to it, thereby neglecting her just as much in death as he did in life.

In its original incarnation the collection was known as 'The Apple Tree', and the title story of the first collection tells the tale of a man who neglects his wife, but after her death is sure that her spirit is occupying an apple tree in the garden. It is based on a real life colony living on Monte Verite in Switzerland who believe that man should live in harmony with nature. The collection includes five other stories 'Monte Verita' tells the story of a sect that live on an isolated mountain, and who entice young, pretty girls from the surrounding areas to come and live with them, never to be seen again. She developed this image until the seagulls were twice the normal size, and determined to attack. One day she saw a man ploughing a field whilst seagulls flew overhead.

The release of the movie version of the story coincided with the reprinting of 'The Apple Tree', which was re-titled The Birds and Other Stories.ĭu Maurier was renowned for her gothic novelettes and she almost always drew inspiration for her work from the things that she saw all around her. The story is thought to be a metaphor for the Blitz attacks in London during the war. The story is set shortly after the end of World War Two, the birds bringing an new aerial danger to the whole of England now that the aerial assault from the German air force has been vanquished. The Birds is the story of a farmer and his family whose community in Cornwall, in the south west of England, is attacked by flocks and flocks of murderous seagulls. In fact, du Maurier's short story first appeared in her 1952 collection of short stories titled 'The Apple Tree'. Tipi Hedren's pistachio green suit made The Birds such an iconic movie that it comes as an enormous surprise to movie goers that the story was in fact created by English writer Daphne du Maurier, and not by the undisputed king of horror, Alfred Hitchcock. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The apple tree daphne du maurier