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
Friends, Associates John Strange Winter
JSW had an extensive social circle in London—her biographer, Oliver Bainbridge , notes that a number of social claims were made upon her by reason of her popularity, and that these were always in advance...
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...
Friends, Associates Ella Wheeler Wilcox
On one of her visits to England she was entertained at Stratford by Marie Corelli .
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler. The Worlds and I. Gay and Hancock.
213
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...
Education Alison Uttley
It hurt her pride that she made the scholarship list only after someone else had declined. She travelled daily by milk cart and milk train to this old-fashioned, rigorous school where teachers routinely used ridicule...
Family and Intimate relationships Viola Tree
The wedding attracted so many people that traffic round about St. Martin's Church had for some hours to be diverted.
Beerbohm, Max, editor. Herbert Beerbohm Tree: Some Memories of Him and of His Art. Hutchinson.
143
The best man was Denys Finch Hatton , a friend of Alan Parsons since...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Taylor
Paul Bailey opens his introduction by quoting extensively from a scene in Ethel M. Dell 's The Top of the World which features a Proud Beauty and a Faithful Retainer. He also links Angel with...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Taylor
ET 's protagonist, a monster of egotism, mentions Rhoda Broughton and Corelli in connection with her own work, but only to suggest that hers is worth yet greater sums of money than theirs.
Taylor, Elizabeth, and Paul Bailey. Angel. Virago.
76
She...
Friends, Associates Annie S. Swan
She also mentions a great many literary names. Among women writers whom she calls the stars of her generation were Mary Augusta Ward , Lucas Malet , Lucy Clifford , Sarah Grand , Violet Hunt
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'...
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...
Education Amanda McKittrick Ros
AMKR gives no solid information about whether she ever attended school, or if so which one. She was deeply influenced during her childhood by romantic novels, particularly R. M. Roche 's The Children of the...
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...
Textual Features Julia Pardoe
Indebted to the tradition of Goethe 's Faust, the story may have influenced Marie Corelli 's Sorrows of Satan (1895).
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

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.