its list of the 100 most inspiring novels. Awards In the U.S., du Maurier won the National Book Award for favourite novel of 1938, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 14 on the UK survey The Big Read. In 2017, it was voted the UK's favourite book of the past 225 years in a poll by bookseller W H Smith. Other novels in the shortlist were To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and 1984 by George Orwell. Adaptations Film The best known of the theatrical film adaptations is the Academy Award–winning 1940 Alfred Hitchcock film version Rebecca, the first film Hitchcock made under his contract with David O. Selznick. The film, which starred Laurence Olivier as Maxim, Joan Fontaine as his wife, and Dame Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers, was based on the novel. However, the Hollywood Production Code required that if Maxim had murdered his wife, he would have to be punished for his crime. Therefore, the key turning point of the novel—the revelation that Maxim, in fact, murdered Rebecca—was altered so that Rebecca's death was accidental. This change had not been made in Orson Welles' previous radio play which included a promotion of the film. At the end of the film version, Mrs Danvers perishes in the fire, which she had started. The film quickly became a classic, and at the time, was a major technical achievement in film-making. In 2020, there was a Netflix adaptation, directed by Ben Wheatley and written by Jane Goldman, starring Lily James as the second Mrs de Winter, Armie Hammer as Maxim, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs Danvers. Television Rebecca was adapted for The Philco Television Playhouse (10 October 1948), with Mary Anderson and Bramwell Fletcher; Robert Montgomery Presents (22 May 1950), with Barbara Bel Geddes and Peter Cookson; and Broadway Television Theatre (1 September 1952), with Patricia Breslin and Scott Forbes. Theatre '62 presented an NBC-TV adaptation starring James Mason as Maxim, Joan Hackett as the second Mrs de Winter, and Nina Foch as Mrs Danvers. Rebecca, a 1979 BBC adaptation, was directed by Simon Langton and starred Jeremy Brett as Maxim, Joanna David as the second Mrs de Winter, and Anna Massey (Jeremy Brett's former wife) as Mrs Danvers. It ran for four 55-minute episodes. It was