In a bar in France, a lonely English academic on holiday meets his double, a French aristocrat who gets him drunk, swaps identities and disappears, leaving the Englishman to sort out the Frenchman's extensive financial and family problems. In fact you can see from my review above I was assuming this was the first tine I had laid eyes on this book. And instead of writing herself into the story, the author took on the guise of a male narrator, one of five occasions in major novels when she did this. Daphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. John agrees to go for a drink with Jean but falls into a drunken stupor and wakes up in a hotel room to find that Jean has disappeared, taking John's clothes and identity documents with him!

I found the premise of this story very intriguing and I found I couldn't stop wondering what I would do if I met my exact double. Finally, John apologizes to Blanche for Jean's past actions and asks her to run the glassworks in his place. There is also another way to interpret the story, one which goes deeper into the psychology of identity - I won't say any more about that here, but if you read the book this theory may occur to you too.Naturally, they expect him to continue running the family glass-making business and arranging shooting parties - things that John has absolutely no experience in. De férias em França, vê-se dum dia para o outro no lugar de um sósia e sente-se, nem ele próprio sabe porquê, compelido a manter essa situação, praticamente insustentável.

In The Scapegoat, her ancestral glass-blowing foundry became the failing business of the de Gué family. Although Jekyll became subsumed and ultimately destroyed by the malignant influence of Hyde, John conversely seems to become more self-possessed and confident through his exploration of his darker self.This is one of the best books I've read this year - it is definitely the best fiction that is not a reread. The feeling of power, of triumph that I was outwitting this little group of unsuspecting people had turned again to shame. However, as time passes, John starts to change the pre-determined script and acts out of character (as he is clearly not Jean).