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
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...
Textual Production Oscar Wilde
Wilde shifted the magazine's focus from fashion and transformed it into an organ for women's opinions and feelings on the subjects of modern life, art, and literature, as well as style. He was also dedicated...
Textual Production Hélène Barcynska
She says she was ambitious from an early age, wanting to earn her own fast cars and other luxuries,
Barcynska, Hélène. Full and Frank: The Private Life of a Woman Novelist. Hurst and Blackett.
18
and wanting also to Make a Name.
Barcynska, Hélène. Full and Frank: The Private Life of a Woman Novelist. Hurst and Blackett.
27
Because her mother told her almost no...
Textual Production Mary Elizabeth Braddon
The first instalment of MEB 's hugely popular novel Lady Audley's Secret appeared in Robin Goodfellow; when this weekly sixpenny failed thirteen weeks later, she dropped Lady Audley for Aurora Floyd.
The editor...
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...
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
Textual Features Julia Pardoe
Indebted to the tradition of Goethe 's Faust, the story may have influenced Marie Corelli 's Sorrows of Satan (1895).
Publishing Flora Annie Steel
In her extraordinarily productive year of 1897, FAS contributed to the Lady's Realm an untitled essay in a debate begun by Marie Corelli over the value of passionate love, in what was at the time...
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...
politics Queen Victoria
In her Passing of the Great Queen, Marie Corelli , like Sarah Stickney Ellis, linked QV 's femininity to that of the women of Britain, but Corelli transforms her praise of Victoria's womanly virtue...
Occupation Annie S. Swan
As president of this society ASS tried to get Marie Corelli to a meeting, but in vain: Corelli was invincibly prejudiced against journalists, feeling mistreated by them. Swan, on the contrary, admired the women journalists'...
Literary responses Ouida
Ouida was hailed as a woman of genius. Not Talent, merely, but Genius in a Belgravia article by Marie Corelli .
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Gale Research.
43: 355
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...
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...
Literary responses Barbara Pym
This became BP 's most widely-reviewed text, and received a mixed reception. Robert Liddell was again outraged, calling this a dreadful book which had only been made possible by the betrayal of Pym's friends in...

Timeline

1681: The baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)...

Building item

1681

The baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) published his first twelve Church Sonatas, dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden (who had abdicated and was living in Rome).

2 July 1914: The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited...

Building item

2 July 1914

The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis , formally announced the arrival of Vorticism, an avant-garde movement in art.

1951: Theatre historian Allardyce Nicoll established...

Writing climate item

1951

Theatre historian Allardyce Nicoll established the Shakespeare Institute ; it is part of Birmingham University and is housed in Mason Croft at Stratford, formerly the home of novelist Marie Corelli .

Texts

Corelli, Marie. "Temporal Power". Methuen, 1902.
Corelli, Marie. A Romance of Two Worlds. R. Bentley, 1886.
Corelli, Marie. A Romance of Two Worlds. Hurst, 1900, http://HSS PR 4504 R7.
Corelli, Marie. Barabbas. Methuen, 1893.
Corelli, Marie. Boy. Hutchinson, 1900.
Corelli, Marie. Free Opinions. A. Constable, 1905.
Keating, Peter John, and Marie Corelli. “Introduction”. The Sorrows of Satan, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. ix - xx.
Corelli, Marie. Is All Well with England?. Jarrolds, 1917.
Corelli, Marie, and G. H. Edwards. Jane. Hutchinson, 1897.
Corelli, Marie. Love—and the Philosopher. Methuen, 1923.
Corelli, Marie. Open Confession. Hutchinson, 1924.
Corelli, Marie. Poems. Hutchinson, 1925.
Corelli, Marie, and Arthur Severn. The Devil’s Motor. Hodder and Stoughton, 1910.
Corelli, Marie. The Master-Christian. Methuen, 1900.
Corelli, Marie et al. The Modern Marriage Market. Hutchinson, 1898.
Corelli, Marie. The Silver Domino. Lamley, 1892.
Corelli, Marie. The Sorrows of Satan. Methuen, 1895.
Corelli, Marie. The Sorrows of Satan. Methuen, 1900.
Corelli, Marie. The Soul of Lilith. R. Bentley, 1892.
Corelli, Marie. The Treasure of Heaven. A. Constable, 1906.
Corelli, Marie. Thelma. R. Bentley, 1887.
Corelli, Marie. Vendetta!. R. Bentley, 1886.
Corelli, Marie. Vendetta!. Methuen, 1962.
Corelli, Marie. Wormwood. R. Bentley and Son, 1890.
Corelli, Marie. Wormwood. Methuen, 1897, http://HSS PR 4504 W92 1897.