The Breaking Point is a collection of eight short stories by Daphne du Maurier first published in 1959 by Victor Gollancz in the UK and Doubleday in the US. It has also been published under the title The Blue Lenses and Other Stories. The stories were written at a time when du Maurier herself came close to a severe nervous breakdown and reflect her own psychological stress. Du Maurier herself acknowledged she had come close to madness immediately before she wrote them; and they were part of her cure – "the means by which she wrote herself back to sanity". The original book had illustrations before each story by Margot Tomes. Source: Wikipedia (en)