An Englishman's Home is a threat-of-invasion play by Guy du Maurier, first produced in 1909. The title is a reference to the expression "an Englishman's home is his castle".
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'An Englishman's Home' caused a sensation in London when it appeared anonymously, under the name "A Patriot", in 1909.[1] It first played at Wyndham's Theatre on 27th January[2] and went on to be a long-running success. It is now considered a significant example of the invasion literature popular at the time.[3] The play was produced by Guy's brother Gerald du Maurier, possibly without his knowledge and with some assistance from J. M. Barrie.[4] The story concerns an attack on England by an unnamed foreign power, generally assumed to represent Germany. The home of an ordinary middle class family is beseiged by soldiers, and the play climaxes with the father shooting an enemy officer and subsequently being executed.[5] The play stressed Britain's unpreparedness for attack, and has been credited with boosting recruitment to the Territorial Army in the years immediately before World War I.[6][7] It influenced niece Daphne du Maurier's novelette The Birds,[8] which was made into a movie directed by Alfred Hitchock.
Du Maurier's play was the basis for the 1940 British drama film of the same name directed by Albert de Courville and starring Edmund Gwenn, Mary Maguire and Paul Henreid.[9] A German spy is despatched to Britain to search out targets for a planned invasion.[10]
"An Englishman's Home". Archive.org. http://www.archive.org/details/anenglishmansho00maurgoog. Retrieved November 11, 2011.