''Frenchman's Creek'' is a 1941 historical novel by

Daphne du Maurier Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, (; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was Geo ...

. Set in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

during the reign of Charles II, it tells the story of a love affair between an impulsive English lady, Dona, Lady St. Columb, and a French

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

, Jean-Benoit Aubéry.

Synopsis

Dona, Lady St. Columb, makes a sudden visit with her children to Navron, her husband's remote estate in Cornwall, in a fit of disgust with her shallow life in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

court society. There she finds that the property, unoccupied for several years, is being used as a base by a notorious French pirate who has been terrorising the Cornish coast. Dona finds that the pirate, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, is not a desperate character at all, but rather a more educated and cultured man than her own doltish husband, and they fall in love. Dona dresses as a boy and joins the pirate crew on an expedition to cut out and capture a richly laden merchant ship belonging to one of her neighbours. The attack is a success, but the news of it brings Dona's husband Harry and his friend Rockingham to Cornwall, disrupting her idyllic romance. Harry, Rockingham, and the other locals meet at Navron to plot how to capture the pirate, but Aubéry and his crew cleverly manage to capture and rob their would-be captors instead. Rockingham, who has had designs on Dona himself, perceives the relationship between her and Aubéry, and Dona is forced to kill him in self-defence when he attacks her in a jealous rage. Meanwhile, Aubéry is captured while trying to return to his ship, and Dona hatches a plot for his release. She chooses life with him instead of re-joining her family.

Adaptations

The 1944 film, '' Frenchman's Creek'' starring

Joan Fontaine Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared ...

, Arturo de Córdova, and Basil Rathbone (as Rockingham) is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel. It also starred

Nigel Bruce William Nigel Ernle Bruce (4 February 1895 – 8 October 1953) was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in a series of films and in the radio series ''The New Adventures of Sherlock ...

, Rathbone's old Sherlock Holmes film partner, in their only non-Holmes/Watson screen appearance together. A television film of 1998 starred

Tara Fitzgerald Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald (born 18 September 1967) is an English actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage. She won the New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play in 1995 as Opheli ...

as Dona,

James Fleet James Edward Fleet (born 11 March 1952) is an English actor of theatre, radio and screen. He is most famous for his roles as the bumbling and well-meaning Tom in the 1994 British romantic comedy film '' Four Weddings and a Funeral'' and the dim- ...

as her husband, and Anthony Delon as the Frenchman. Whilst possibly more historically accurate, it varied greatly from the du Maurier original. {{Daphne du Maurier 1942 British novels Novels by Daphne du Maurier Novels about pirates Novels set in Cornwall Victor Gollancz Ltd books British novels adapted into films fr:L'aventure vient de la mer