Marie Corelli

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Standard Name: Corelli, Marie
Birth Name: Mary Mackay
Nickname: Minnie
Pseudonym: Marie Corelli
MC was one of the first authors of the modern best seller. She published thirty-one popular novels, including one, published posthumously, which fictionalizes events from her own life. She also wrote short stories (collected in four volumes). She wrote poetry as a child and published a collection of poems posthumously. Her novels have been seen as blending the conventions of the romance, gothic, historical, and society novels. At the turn of the century, sales of each of her novels were in the range of 175,000 copies; at the end of world war one her fame and sales fell drastically. She was the first woman to lecture before the Royal Society of Literature : The Signs of the Times was presented on 20 February 1902.
Black and white photo of Mary Corelli by F. Adrian, published in 1904. She sits in a chair that is adorned in unusual style with tassels, wearing a pale dress and holding an open book. Her hair is short and curly, artfully disarranged.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Ouida
The Athenæum criticized this novel for mock eloquence
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2016 (16 June 1866): 797
and thought anyone choosing to read it was making a very bad use of their freedom.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2016 (16 June 1866): 798
In...
Education Elma Napier
In spite of the fact that her family did not value literature as much as games, and that her mother had specific ideas about what girls should read, EN devoured every book she could get...
Friends, Associates George Meredith
GM knew the poets Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Swinburne —he sometimes stayed with them while in London. He also knew Emma Caroline Wood , Lucie Duff Gordon , Leslie Stephen , Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Leisure and Society Eliza Lynn Linton
She enjoyed going to and hosting prominent literary and social receptions. Her guests included a wide range of people: popular writers such as Rudyard Kipling , Marie Corelli , and Frank Harris ; luminaries of...
Textual Production Q. D. Leavis
In her essays, reviews, introductions, and lectures, QDL also developed varied critiques of such authors as Charlotte Brontë , George Eliot , Charlotte Yonge , Marie Corelli , Edith Wharton , Naomi Mitchison , Amabel Williams-Ellis
Literary responses Sheila Kaye-Smith
Critic Rachel Anderson considers that the religous or quasi-religious element in SKS 's characters—their larger-than-life passions and obsessions, their quests and self-lacerations and rebirths—link her work with that of such romance-writers as Florence Barclay ,...
Friends, Associates Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
In London JFLW associated with writers such as Marie Corelli , Ouida , and Violet Hunt . Oscar , an emerging celebrity, introduced his mother to the city's artistic circle.
Education Naomi Jacob
One of NJ 's favourite home occupations even as a small child was improvised acting, with her sister in spear-carrying roles. She also learned cricket and football, and her grandfather Collinson taught her whist. She...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text John Oliver Hobbes
JOH sometimes discusses her own writing, career, and ambition: One's place in literature is a possession—never a concession. And one knows one's place. I don't wish to be judged—one way or the other—till I am...
Publishing Jessie Fothergill
The copyright of the novel initially sold for £40 on 26 March 1877. Two months later, Richard Bentley and Son recognized its commercial possibilities and drew up a new contract, increasing the price to £200...
Education Elaine Feinstein
Her MA followed automatically three years after her Cambridge BA. She achieved her Part I bar finals in London, but dropped the idea of practising law when she understood how much money she would...
Textual Production Elaine Feinstein
EF has carried out a great deal of scholarly commentary of a kind best calculated to be useful to readers (though she did not finish her MA thesis on nineteenth-century sexual fantasists like Ouida and...
Literary responses Daphne Du Maurier
Rebecca was DDM 's best known work, earning her massive profits, and it has become one of the most widely read novels of all time.
Kelly, Richard. Daphne du Maurier. Twayne.
66
The Times Literary Supplement reviewer wrote: In its kind...
Friends, Associates Ménie Muriel Dowie
As a public literary figure MMD moved amongst the major writers of her day. At the Women Writers' Dinner of the New Vagabonds Club in June 1895, she spoke alongside Adeline Sergeant , Christabel Coleridge
Literary responses Florence Dixie
FD received many letters of appreciation from individual readers: from a sailor on a British warship and a soldier with the army in South Africa, as well as from Ouida and Marie Corelli , to...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Corelli, Marie. Ziska. Arrowsmith; Simpkin,, Marshall, 1897.
Corelli, Marie. Ziska. Methuen, 1960.