Corelli, Marie (1855–1924)

English novelist, one of the most popular in late-19th-century England. Name variations: Mary MacKay or Mackay; Minnie Mackay. Born Mary Mills in Bayswater, London, England, in 1855; died of heart disease in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, on April 21, 1924; daughter of Charles Mackay (1814–1889, a poet and journalist) and Mary Ellen Mills; lived with Bertha Vyver (who later wrote Corelli's memoirs) in Stratford-upon-Avon.

For years, Marie Corelli maintained that she was the daughter of an Italian father and Scottish mother but was adopted in infancy by Charles Mackay, a poet and journalist. In actuality, Corelli was the daughter of Mackay and Mary Ellen Mills , a servant who became his second ond wife in 1859. The family moved to Fern Dell, near Box Hill, Surrey, where Corelli was encouraged to pursue music by her neighbor George Meredith. The name Corelli was chosen as appropriate for a musical career.

But in 1886, Mary Mackay under the name Marie Corelli published A Romance of Two Worlds, a clever, well-written narrative concerning a psychic experience connecting the Christian Deity with a world force in the form of electricity. The book had an immediate impact and large sale, and Corelli devoted the rest of her life trying to satisfy the public clamor for similar works. It was her third novel, Thelma: A Society Novel (1887), that brought her popular acclaim and celebrity. She wrote a series of melodramatic romantic novels, among them: Vendetta (1886), Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self (1889), Barabbas: A Dream of the World's Tragedy (1893), The Sorrows of Satan (1895), The Mighty Atom (1896), Ziska (1897), and Temporal Power (1902). All of these works met with public approval, though literary critics did not always give them serious consideration. At her peak, Marie Corelli was the most popular novelist in England.

suggested reading:

Bigland, E. Marie Corelli. 1953.

Masters, Brian. Now Barabbas was a Rotter: The Extraordinary Life of Marie Corelli. 1978.

Scott, W.S. Marie Corelli. 1955

Vyver, Bertha. Memoirs of Marie Corelli. 1930.