Corelli, Marie

Marie Corelli, pseudonym of Mary Mackay (born 1855, London, Eng.-died April 21, 1924, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick), best-selling English author of more than 20 romantic melodramatic novels. Her first book, A Romance of Two Worlds (1886), dealt with psychic experience-a theme in many of her later novels. Her first major success was Barabbas: A Dream of the World's Tragedy (1893), in which her treatment of the Crucifixion was designed to appeal to popular taste. The Sorrows of Satan (1895), also based on a melodramatic treatment of a religious theme, had an even wider vogue. Throughout her imme...