| AdminHistory | Mary Mackay, likely the illegitimate daughter of the journalist Charles Mackay, assumed the name Marie Corelli in the early 1880s and found celebrity as a best-selling novelist. Her first book, A Romance of Two Worlds (1886), was a winning combination of morality, mysticism, out-of-body experiences and electricity. A rapid succession of novels followed, in which she drew on her imagination for settings historical and exotic: Vendetta (1886) featured Naples; Thelma (1887) Scandinavia; Ardath: the Story of a Dead Self (1889) followed, and in Wormwood (1890) she tackled the sins of absinthe-drinking in Paris. The peak of her success came with Barabbas (1893), in which she retold the story of the crucifixion, and The Sorrows of Satan (1895), which combined an attack on the vices of high society with melodrama and spirituality. Despite the carping of her critics The Sorrows of Satan sold more than any previous English novel and established Corelli’s reputation as best-selling author with wide popular appeal. |
| CustodialHistory | This collection was originlly curated by Maureen Bell who became intrigued with Marie Corelli after encountering her name in the 1990s during her teaching position at the University of Birmingham Shakespeare Institute in Mason Croft, Corelli's Stratford home. It was sent to Liverpool in 2017 for the use of the late Nickianne Moody in her research for a proposed book on Corelli, and subsequntly deposited with LJMU Special Collections & Archives in 2019 following the death of Nickianne Moody for use in her memory. |