Julius

　　A chilling story of ambition, Daphne du Maurier's third novel has lost none of its ability to unsettle and disturb.

　　Julius L?vy has grown up in a peasant family in a village on the banks of the Seine. A quick-witted urchin caught up in the Franco-Prussian War, he is soon forced by tragedy to escape to Algeria. Once there, he learns the ease of swindling, the rewards of love affairs, and the value of secrecy. Before he's twenty, he's in London, where his empire-building begins in earnest. Driven by a lifelong hunger for power, he becomes a rich and ruthless man. His one weakness--his daughter Gabriel...

　　Dame Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) wrote more than twenty-five acclaimed novels, short stories, and plays, including Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn, and The House on the Strand. She was also a passionate and skillful chronicler of her own remarkable, famously artistic family. Now, three of her fine novels have been reissued in the distinguished Virago Modern Classics series.