The Sorrows of Satan (1895) was one of the first modern bestsellers and was influential in establishing some of the major trends in twentieth-century bestselling fiction. `Breakers ahead! Throughout the world, storm and danger and doom! Doom and Death! - but afterwards - Life!' London, 1895, and the Devil is on the loose. He is searching for someone morally strong enough to resist temptation, but there seem little chance he will succeed. Britain is all but totally corrupt. The aristocracy is financially and spiritually bankrupt; church leaders no longer believe in God;Victorian idealism has been banished from literature and life; and sexual morality is being undermined by the pernicious doctrines of the `New Woman'. Everything and everyone is up for sale, and it takes a special kind of moral courage to resist the Devil's seductions.
Despite the ridicule of reviewers, Marie Corelli (1855-1924) was the most popular novelist of her time. Federico (English, James Madison University) points out the creative, combative and contradictory nature of Corelli's participation in the culture, and argues that her attempts to create her own image illuminate continuing debates about literary value, class hegemony, and gender politics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
"Ziska" is a supernatural and thrilling story about love, passion, treason and revenge, set in the late 19th-century Cairo. Ziska is a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian woman who was killed by her lover once he got tired of her. The reincarnated Ziska is beautiful, mysterious, seductive, and has stolen the hearts of all the young men, including the famous French painter Armand Gervase, who has just arrived in Cairo. Gervase immediately falls for Ziska, feeling that he knows her from somewhere. At same time, he is the only man Ziska has eyes for, because he looks exactly like the man who killed her...
After a brief illness and premature death, an Italian man returns home to find his deceitful wife in the arms of his former best friend. This shocking reveal pushes him to seek retribution from the unsuspecting parties. In cholera-ridden Italy, Count Fabio Romani lives in an illustrious home with his beautiful wife. Yet, his life takes an unsuspected turn when he suddenly falls ill and is presumed dead. He is buried alive but manages to escape and find a way back to the woman he loves. Unfortunately, his return is soured when he discovers his closest friend has taken his place. Heartbroken, Fabio conceals his identity and devises a plan to avenge everything he has lost. Vendetta: A Story of One Forgotten is the second novel published by Marie Corelli following her debut, A Romance of Two Worlds. It’s an epic drama fueled by one man’s desperate need to retaliate. Fabio is a tortured hero who ultimately plays judge, jury and executioner. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Vendetta: A Story of One Forgotten is both modern and readable.
Marie Corelli dined with the Prince of Wales, entertained Sarah Bernhardt and split Stratford into warring factions, but she seems to have invented her own past. The bestselling novelist of her age, she blazed into fame from nothing.
“We strongly caution viewers that the footage about to be broadcast is of a highly graphic and unsettling nature.” The blonde anchor glanced nervously off-camera, as if there were a gun pointed at his head, then gazed back into the lens. “I’d like to remind our audience that it has never been the policy of this station to panic or unduly alarm our viewership in bringing such events to public attention, or exploit or sensationalize any such footage we may receive. That said, the videotape we’re about to present is uncensored and unedited in hopes that viewers might better prepare themselves for what is happening in the eastern portion of the country and which, by all reliable indicators, may spread our way in coming weeks. “This footage comes to us from our affiliate station in Chicago and was shot by W.N.C. cameraman Dennis Kabrich in the neighboring community of Elmhurst. Once again, what you are about to witness is real and is attributed to the so-called ‘Wormwood’ or ‘Yellowseed’ virus, first reported near the town of Willard, Pennsylvania, just two short months ago. This footage is of an extremely graphic nature and viewer discretion is strongly advised.” With that, the cautions ceased and the videotape rolled. “We need to start making plans,” Rudy Cheng told his wife later in bed, nudging her out of a warm drowse. “We need to start getting ready for this thing.” Aimee propped herself up on an elbow. “Rudy, Chicago is almost two thousand miles away. They’ll figure out how to stop it before it gets much further.” He flipped himself on his back and gazed at the ceiling. “I wish I could believe that.” “That news report must have been something to tie you in knots like this.” “It was. I don’t know whether to wish you’d seen it or be grateful you didn’t.” “Well you know how television can be. They like to play things up, make them look bigger than they actually are. What they didn’t show you is how normal things are a block or two away. You only saw what they wanted you to see.” He nodded, thinking of the pile of bodies and the line of gunners on the roof. “This looked like the apocalypse.” She laughed softly in the dark. “People have been seeing the apocalypse for two thousand years.” Against his closed eyelids, a dead man came shambling out of a dingy garage and disintegrated in a storm of gunfire, taking a screaming soldier with him. “This looked pretty convincing.” The bedroom lapsed into silence. “What have you been doing all night?” she finally asked. “Watching the news. Thinking about what I’ll do when this thing finally shows up.” “If this thing shows up,” she amended, touching a finger to his lips. “If,” he allowed, though not believing it. Aside from the Chicago video, more snapshots of the epidemic were surfacing, opening up like new doors to Hell. It didn’t matter if you called it Wormwood or Yellowseed, it wasn’t the sort of thing that just petered out of its own volition. It had a maw the size of Texas and wasn’t likely to stop chewing until there was nothing left but silent earth and rotting dead. “What sorts of plans have you been making?” Aimee asked, though hesitantly. “I drew a map of the neighborhood,” Rudy told her. “That sounds harmless enough,” Aimee said, relieved. “Maybe I’ll show it to some of the neighbors tomorrow,” he decided. “See if anyone else has given this serious thought.” In his first published novel, Michael James McFarland draws an unforgettable portrait of Quail Street, whose residents have joined together to survive an emerging epidemic. Their initial plans, threatened by widespread panic, fall to pieces with the arrival of the virus itself and, pitted against one another for survival, courage and cowardice become malleable — more often than not a consequence of circumstance —the characters forced to change with each new crisis. Warning: this novel contains graphic material and is not intended for readers 17 and under.
With the purpose of introducing Marie Corelli to a new generation of readers and of reconsidering her works for generations familiar with them, Reinventing Marie Corelli for the Twenty-First Century demonstrates how provocative the author was as a public figure and how controversial and paradoxical were the views about womanhood and the supernatural pitched in her novels. This collection of original essays focuses on three major battles that engaged Corelli: her personal and public contentions, her mercurial constructions of gender and resistance to the New Woman modality and her untenable reconciliation of science with the supernatural. Corelli was often fighting several fronts at the same time; she rarely was not at war with someone including herself.
