Marie Corelli (1855–1924)
Author of The Sorrows of Satan
About the Author
Marie Corelli (1 May 1855 -- 21 April 1924) was a British novelist. She enjoyed a period of great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Corelli's novels sold more copies than the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including Arthur Conan Doyle, H. show more G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling. Corelli was born in London. She wrote both fiction and nonfiction, short stories and dramatic plays. Some of her works were adapted to film and theatre productions. In her final years, Corelli lived on Stratford-Upon-Avon. She was considered to be eccentric and could be seen boating there in a gondola from Venice complete with a gondolier. Corelli died there in 1924 and is buried in the Evesham Road cemetery. Her house, Mason Croft, still stands on Church Street and is now the home of the Shakespeare Institute. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Marie Corelli
Poems 2 copies
My 'little bit' 2 copies
HEIDÄN SUURI KEVÄÄNSÄ 1 copy
Morgana 1 copy
Letters on the Simple Life 1 copy
strange visitation 1 copy
Det evige Hvorfor! 1 copy
Complete Collection of Marie Corelli (Annotated): Works Include A Romance of Two Worlds, Ardath, The Sorrows of Satan,… (2021) 1 copy
Tv ̄vr̃ldar 1 copy
Jane 1 copy
The Ghost in the Sedan-Chair and Other Stories (Black Heath Gothic, Sensation and Supernatural) (2014) 1 copy
Last Warior Queen, The 1 copy
Associated Works
Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers: 1852-1923 (2020) — Contributor — 84 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Marie Corelli
- Legal name
- Mackay, Mary
- Birthdate
- 1855-05-01
- Date of death
- 1924-04-21
- Burial location
- Evesham Road cemetery, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, UK
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- UK
- Country (for map)
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Place of death
- Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Paris, France - Education
- Parisian Convent
- Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
poet
essayist - Relationships
- Mackay, Charles (father)
Vyver, Bertha (companion) - Short biography
- Mary Mackay was born in London, the daughter of a Scottish writer. She adopted the pseudonym Marie Corelli and became first a musician and then a bestselling author of more than 30 gothic, romance, mystical, and society novels. Her work was greatly admired by Queen Victoria and Prime Minister Gladstone, among many others. She also wrote short stories and poetry. She published her first book in 1886. Her first major success was Barabbas: A Dream of the World’s Tragedy (1893). The Sorrows of Satan (1895), also based on a religious theme, had even greater popular success. In 1901, she moved to Stratford-upon-Avon, where she lived for many years and was active in efforts to preserve historic buildings.
Members
Reviews
The Secret Power; a Romance of theTime by Marie Corelli
A fey young woman invents power for new form of air ship, a young man invents a new bomb with intention of blackmailing nations into peace.
What a strange, disturbing novel this turned out to be. Very gothic in nature and reminiscent of Anne Radcliff at times. I had serious doubts at the outset, but after about 75 pages it began to develop into what was a captivating story of a love gone wrong. Gaston Beauvais is a well-placed banker’s son, engaged to marry Pauline de Charmilles, the only daughter of a Count, and about to embark upon a life of wealth and honor. Into this idyllic scenario comes a novice priest, Silvion Guidel, the nephew of the local rector. It is immediately obvious that this man and Pauline are drawn to each other and that betrayal is in the air.
The story built momentum and I was quite torn between feeling pity for our wronged Gaston and horror at his overwhelming need for revenge on the two people by whom he feels so betrayed. Then the story went on far too long and became a treatise on the evils of absinthe. Whether lives were actually destroyed by absinthe, people went mad drinking absinthe due to the rotten wormwood used to make the drink, or actually suffered from hallucinations because of it, is disputed. That it was popular in the late 1800s and banned in 1915 is not. By the end of the book, I knew I had been hoodwinked by a clever member of the Paris temperance movement.
Even with its obvious political agenda, this could have been an interesting read had Corelli kept it to half the pages. She felt obligated to describe in great detail and more than once the travails of the addiction. As well, she turned her character from someone who could be understood as an injured man to someone who was far too callous and unfeeling toward even those who were blameless in his misfortune to be realistic. I’m sure addiction to any harmful substance alters personality and sometimes brings out all the worst in an individual, but I would not expect that it does so as quickly or as thoroughly as is pictured here. I wonder if Corelli was able to convince anyone to steer clear of the “green fairy” with this tale.
… (more)
The story built momentum and I was quite torn between feeling pity for our wronged Gaston and horror at his overwhelming need for revenge on the two people by whom he feels so betrayed. Then the story went on far too long and became a treatise on the evils of absinthe. Whether lives were actually destroyed by absinthe, people went mad drinking absinthe due to the rotten wormwood used to make the drink, or actually suffered from hallucinations because of it, is disputed. That it was popular in the late 1800s and banned in 1915 is not. By the end of the book, I knew I had been hoodwinked by a clever member of the Paris temperance movement.
Even with its obvious political agenda, this could have been an interesting read had Corelli kept it to half the pages. She felt obligated to describe in great detail and more than once the travails of the addiction. As well, she turned her character from someone who could be understood as an injured man to someone who was far too callous and unfeeling toward even those who were blameless in his misfortune to be realistic. I’m sure addiction to any harmful substance alters personality and sometimes brings out all the worst in an individual, but I would not expect that it does so as quickly or as thoroughly as is pictured here. I wonder if Corelli was able to convince anyone to steer clear of the “green fairy” with this tale.
… (more)
"...like the majority of men they grow impatient with clever women, they prefer stupid ones. In fact they deliberately choose stupid ones to be the mothers of their children, hence the ever increasing multitude of fools!"
Theres a sub-genre called 'Edisonian', about inventors mostly boy inventors, inspirde by Thomas Edison. This book i'm going to classify as 'Curiepisode' (i'm not great at suffixes ;) ), as inspired by Marie Curie.
A tale of a man and woman, both geniuses, he a penniless academic, she a scrooge mcduck level of wealthy heiress. Both discover a new energy source and this story tells how they each decide to use it. At least thats the general plot outline but doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme.
I would describe them both as self-centered, manic depressive, religious nuts with varying degress of meglomania.
Corelli was apparently very popular in the 1890s unfortnately it doesn't seen her writing changed much since then or that she learned much in the 30 years between.
The physics in this is laughable, the engineering absurd, even the medicine is nonsense. Also its plagued with psuedo-religious theories that would make Dan Brown blush.
It all feels incredibly dated. I think it might be feminist but its views of women are so oldfashioned as to be quite annoying.
The writing itself isn't bad and the meglomania and religious mystery elements are interesting but not utiliszed a lot.
Overall the lenght, boredom and datedness all combined to slowly drop it to one star. I didn't hate reading it but certainly can't recommend it.
Edit: Made available by the Merril Collection.… (more)
Theres a sub-genre called 'Edisonian', about inventors mostly boy inventors, inspirde by Thomas Edison. This book i'm going to classify as 'Curiepisode' (i'm not great at suffixes ;) ), as inspired by Marie Curie.
A tale of a man and woman, both geniuses, he a penniless academic, she a scrooge mcduck level of wealthy heiress. Both discover a new energy source and this story tells how they each decide to use it. At least thats the general plot outline but doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme.
I would describe them both as self-centered, manic depressive, religious nuts with varying degress of meglomania.
Corelli was apparently very popular in the 1890s unfortnately it doesn't seen her writing changed much since then or that she learned much in the 30 years between.
The physics in this is laughable, the engineering absurd, even the medicine is nonsense. Also its plagued with psuedo-religious theories that would make Dan Brown blush.
It all feels incredibly dated. I think it might be feminist but its views of women are so oldfashioned as to be quite annoying.
The writing itself isn't bad and the meglomania and religious mystery elements are interesting but not utiliszed a lot.
Overall the lenght, boredom and datedness all combined to slowly drop it to one star. I didn't hate reading it but certainly can't recommend it.
Edit: Made available by the Merril Collection.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 54
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 1,109
- Popularity
- #23,170
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 29
- ISBNs
- 445
- Languages
- 3
- Favorited
- 4
