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Author: Marie Corelli
Storyline: Corelli's first novel is a fantastic allegory which encompasses the author's (rumored) fictionalized autobiographical search for proto-new age religious and philosophical enlightenment. Of course, the critics hated it, but everyone else ate it up! Bored fin de siecle actresses flirt with the devil and then write about it. Shirley MacLaine has nothing on Marie Corelli!
Copyright: unstated, 1886
Publication: unstated, c.1909
Publisher: A. L. Burt Company, New York (Home Library Edition)
Format: Burgundy red cloth-bound hardcover with gilt lettering to spine
Page Count: 324
Author Biography:
Corelli, Marie (b.1855–d.1924) Born Mary Mackay in London, she was the illegitimate daughter of a well known Scottish poet and songwriter, Dr. Charles Mackay, and his servant, Elizabeth Mills. In 1866, the 11 year old Mary Mackay was sent to a Parisian convent to further her education (Wiki). Already, her life was like the plot of a cheap novel! Later became a mid-19th Century publishing superstar who was loved by her readers (including the royal family and the Churchills). Like a mid-Victorian Danielle Steel, this bestselling author's works were judged to be over-the-top melodrama entirely without any literary merit by the critical establishment of the time. The name Marie Corelli dates from her early career on the musical stage (can't make this stuff up).
Works include: A Romance of Two Worlds (1886); Vendetta!; or, The Story of One Forgotten (1886); Thelma (1887); Ardath (1889); Wormwood: A Drama of Paris (1890); The Soul of Lilith (1892); Barabbas, A Dream of the Word's Tragedy (1893); The Sorrows of Satan (1895); The Mighty Atom (1896); The Murder of Delicia (1896); Ziska (1897); Boy (1900); Jane (1900); The Master-Christian (1900); Temporal Power: a Study in Supremacy (1902); God's Good Man (1904); The Strange Visitation of Josiah McNasson: A Ghost Story (1904); Treasure of Heaven (1906); Holy Orders, The Tragedy of a Quiet Life (1908); Life Everlasting (1911); Innocent, Her Fancy and His Fact (1914); The Young Diana (1918); The Secret Power (1921); Love and the Philosopher (1923)
