Marie Corelli
Marie Corelli | |
---|---|
Born | Mary Mackay 1 May 1855 London, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
Died | 21 April 1924 Stratford-upon-Avon, England, United Kingdom | (aged 68)
Occupation | Novelist |
Nationality | British |
Genre | Gothic, Fantasy, Scientific romance |
Relatives | Charles Mackay (father) |
Mary Mackay (1 May 1855 – 21 April 1924), also called Minnie Mackey and known by her pseudonym Marie Corelli (/kəˈrɛli/,[1][2] also UK: /kɒˈ-/,[3] US: /kɔːˈ-, koʊˈ-/[3][4]), was an English novelist.
From the appearance of her first novel A Romance of Two Worlds in 1886, she became a bestselling fiction-writer, her works largely concerned with Christianity, reincarnation, astral projection and mysticism. Yet despite her many distinguished patrons, she was often ridiculed by critics. Corelli lived her later years in Stratford-upon-Avon, whose historic buildings she fought hard to preserve.
Life and writings
Early life
Mary Mills was born in London to Mary Elizabeth Mills, a servant of the Scottish poet and songwriter Dr Charles Mackay, her biological father, who was married to another woman at the time of young Mary's conception.[5] After his first wife died, he married Mary Elizabeth, whereupon their daughter Mary took the "Mackay" surname. For the rest of her life, Mary / Marie would attempt to conceal her illegitimacy, and to that end disseminated a number of romantic falsehoods about her parentage and upbringing, including stories of adoption and noble Italian ancestry. Her unreliability as a source complicates the task of reconstructing her biography. Recent research suggests that Corelli may even have been adopted by Mackay and Mills from another family, the Codys.[6]
In 1866, eleven-year-old Mary was sent to a Parisian convent (or in some accounts, an English school staffed by nuns) to further her education. She returned home four years later in 1870.
Career
Mackay began her career as a musician, giving piano recitals and adopting the name Marie Corelli for her billing. Eventually she turned to writing and published her first novel,
She faced criticism from the literary elite for her allegedly melodramatic writing. In
A recurring theme in Corelli's books is her attempt to reconcile Christianity with
Corelli famously had little time for the press. In 1902 she wrote to the editor of The Gentlewoman to complain that her name had been left out of a list of the guests in the Royal Enclosure at the Braemar Highland Gathering, saying she suspected this had been done intentionally. The editor replied that her name had indeed been left out intentionally, because of her own stated contempt for the press and for the snobbery of those wishing to appear in "news puffs" of society events. Both letters were published in full in the next issue.[14]
The writer also gained some fame after her letter on the
Personal life
Corelli spent her final years in
For over forty years, Corelli lived with her companion,
Corelli was known to have expressed a genuine passion for the artist Arthur Severn, to whom she wrote daily letters from 1906 to 1917. Severn was the son of Joseph Severn and close friend of John Ruskin. In 1910, she and Severn collaborated on The Devil's Motor, with Severn providing illustrations for Corelli's story. Her love for the long-married painter, her only known romantic attachment to a man, remained unrequited; in fact Severn often belittled Corelli's success.[24][25][26]
During the First World War, Corelli's personal reputation suffered when she was convicted of food hoarding.[27]
She died in Stratford and is buried there in the Evesham Road cemetery.[28] Later Bertha Vyver was buried alongside her.
Public image
Corelli was known to fabricate or exaggerate many details of her life. For example, she consistently claimed (in public and in private) that she had been seventeen years old when her first novel,
Corelli avoided being seen in public, and according to biographer Brian Masters, was possessed of a "positive terror of being photographed". She finally allowed a photograph of herself to be published as the frontispiece of her 1906 novel Treasure of Heaven, though it was apparently airbrushed to depict her as "a sweet young lady in her early twenties".[32] Around the same time, Mark Twain wrote the following description of Corelli's appearance in his diary during a visit to Stratford:
She is about fifty years old but has no grey hairs; she is fat and shapeless; she has a gross animal face; she dresses for sixteen, and awkwardly and unsuccessfully and pathetically imitates the innocent graces and witcheries of that dearest and sweetest of all ages...[33]
Legacy
Corelli is generally accepted to have been the inspiration for at least two of E. F. Benson's characters in his Lucia series of six novels and a short story.[34]
A modern critic has written that Corelli was probably also the inspiration for "Rita's" (Eliza Humphreys's) main character in Diana of the Ephesians, which was published a year before E. F. Benson's first Lucia novel, and had been rejected by Hutchinson, which later published the "Lucia" Lucas novels.[35]
In Chapter III of
In 2007, the British film Angel, based on a book by Elizabeth Taylor, was released as a thinly-veiled biography of Corelli. The film starred Romola Garai in the Corelli role and also starred Sam Neill and Charlotte Rampling. It was directed by François Ozon, who stated, "The character of Angel was inspired by Marie Corelli, a contemporary of Oscar Wilde and Queen Victoria's favourite writer. Corelli was one of the first writers to become a star, writing bestsellers for an adoring public. Today she has been largely forgotten, even in England."[36]
Works
Novels
- A Romance of Two Worlds (1886)
- Vendetta! (1886)
- Thelma (1887)
- Ardath (1889)
- Wormwood: A Drama of Paris (1890)
- The Soul of Lilith (1892)
- Barabbas, A Dream of the World's Tragedy (1893)
- The Sorrows of Satan (1895)
- The Mighty Atom (1896)
- The Murder of Delicia (1896)
- Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul (1897)
- Jane (1897)
- Boy (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)
- The Life Everlasting (1911)
- Innocent: Her Fancy and His Fact (1914)
- The Young Diana (1918)
- The Secret Power (1921)
- Love and the Philosopher (1923)
- Open Confession to a Man from a Woman (1925)
Short story collections
- Cameos: Short Stories (1895)
- The Song of Miriam & Other Stories (1898)
- A Christmas Greeting (1902)
- Delicia & Other Stories (1907)
- The Love of Long Ago, and Other Stories (1918)
Non-fiction
- The Modern Marriage Market (1898) (with others)
- Free Opinions Freely Expressed (1905)
- The Silver Domino; or, Side Whispers, Social & Literary (1892) (anonymous)
Film adaptations
- Vendetta (1915)
- Thelma (1916) Fox Film 1918, I.B. Davidson 1922 Chester Bennett
- Wormwood (1915) Fox Film
- Temporal Power (1916) G.B. Samuelson
- God's Good Man (1919) Stoll Films
- Holy Orders (1917) I.B. Davidson
- Innocent (1921) Stoll Films
- The Young Diana (1922) Paramount Pictures
- The Sorrows of Satan(1926) Paramount
Theatre adaptations
- Vendetta (2007) Adapted by Gillian Hiscott The Library Theatre Ltd; published by Jasper
- The Young Diana (2008) Gillian Hiscott; published by Jasper
References
Notes
- ^ "Corelli, Marie". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.[dead link]
- ^ "Corelli". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- ^ a b "Corelli". Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- ^ "Corelli". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
- ^ Marie Corelli in Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ https://victorianpopularfiction.org/victorian-popular-fictions-5-1-3-turner/
- ^ Coates & Warren Bell (1969)
- ^ Scott, p. 30.
- ^ Scott, p. 263.
- ^ Kirsten McLeod, introduction to Marie Corelli's Wormwood: a drama of Paris, p. 9
- ISBN 9780877287575. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
- ^ "Who was Marie Corelli?". rosicrucian.50webs.com. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
- ^ "Understanding reincarnation & esoteric teachings of Rosicrucians". The Rosicrucian Order, AMORC. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
- ^ Ransom (2013), p. 100.
- ISBN 0306821338
- ISBN 0-19-521952-X]
- ^ The New York Times, 28 June 1903.
- ^ Comyns Carr (1985), p. 124.
- ^ Venice Boats.
- ^ Frederico, pp. 162–86.
- ^ Felski, pp. 130–31.
- ^ Frederico, p. 116.
- ^ Masters, p. 277.
- ^ MacLeod, p. 21.
- ^ Frederico, p. 144.
- ^ Julia Kuehn, "Marie Corelli's Love Letters to Arthur Severn".
- ^ "BBC One – Britain's Great War". BBC. 10 February 2014..
- ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of more than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3rd ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 9851). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- ^ Masters 1978, p. 4-5.
- ^ Masters 1978, p. 57.
- ^ Waller 2006, p. 772.
- ^ Masters 1978, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Masters 1978, p. 4.
- ISBN 978-0701135669. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
- ^ "Rita" The Forgotten Author. By Paul Jones L.R.P.S.
- ^ "Interviews about Angel: François Ozon – Romola Garai – Michael Fassbender". François Ozon. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
Sources
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. pp. 85.
- Carr, Barbara Comyns, Sisters by a River (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947; new edition by Virago Press 1985)
- Coates, T. F. G. and R. S. Warren Bell. Marie Corelli: the Writer and the Woman. George W. Jacobs & Co.: Philadelphia, 1903. Reprinted 1969 by Health Research, Mokelume Hill, CA.
- Felski, Rita (1995). The Gender of Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard U P. pp. 247.
- Federico, Annette (2000). Idol of suburbia: Marie Corelli and late-Victorian literary culture. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. p. 201.
- Lyons, Martyn. 2011. Books: a living history. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.
- Masters, Brian (1978). Now Barabbas was a rotter: the extraordinary life of Marie Corelli. London: H. Hamilton.
- Ransom, Teresa, The Mysterious Miss Marie Corelli: Queen of Victorian Bestsellers (2013)
- Scott, William Stuart, Marie Corelli: the story of a friendship (London: Hutchinson, 1955)
- Turner, Joanna, '“The most accomplished liar in literature”? Uncovering Marie Corelli’s Hidden Early Life', Victorian Popular Fictions 5.1 (Spring 2023): https://victorianpopularfiction.org/victorian-popular-fictions-5-1-3-turner/
- Waller, Philip (2006). Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain 1870-1918. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198206774.
Bibliography
- Ayres, Brenda; Maier, Sarah E. (Ed.): Reinventing Marie Corelli for the twenty-first century, London, UK ; New York, NY : Anthem Press, 2019, ISBN 978-1-78308-943-7
- Bigland, Eileen Marie Corelli, the woman and the legend: a biography, Jarrolds, London 1953
- Coates, T. F. G. and R. S. Warren Bell. Marie Corelli: the Writer and the Woman, George W. Jacobs & Co.: Philadelphia, 1903. Reprinted 1969 by Health Research, Mokelume Hill, CA.
- Federico, Annette R. Idol of Suburbia: Marie Corelli and Late-Victorian Literary Culture, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2000
- Masters, Brian Now Barabbas was a rotter: the extraordinary life of Marie Corelli, H. Hamilton, London, 1978
- Ransom, Teresa The Mysterious Miss Marie Corelli: Queen of Victorian Bestsellers, Sutton, 1999
- Scott, William Stuart, Marie Corelli: the story of a friendship, London: Hutchinson, 1955
- Turner, Joanna, '“The most accomplished liar in literature”? Uncovering Marie Corelli’s Hidden Early Life', Victorian Popular Fictions 5.1 (Spring 2023): https://victorianpopularfiction.org/victorian-popular-fictions-5-1-3-turner/
- Turner, Joanna, ‘Making a Name for Herself: Marie Corelli’s Self-Guided Literary Apprenticeship Via the Periodical Press’, 2023, Victorian Periodicals Review, 56:1. 110-132. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/vpr.2023.a905142
- Vyver, Bertha Memoirs of Marie Corelli, A. Rivers Ltd, 1930
External links
- Marie Corelli Collection at Yale University Music Library
- Marie Corelli at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- "Archival material relating to Marie Corelli". UK National Archives.
- Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Marie Corelli & her Occult Tales, 1998 (archived)
- Marie Corelli Collection. General Collection. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Online editions
- Works by Marie Corelli at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Marie Corelli at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Marie Corelli at Internet Archive
- Works by Marie Corelli at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)