Editing Marie Corelli (section)

==Life and writings==
===Early life===
[[File:Miss Marie Corelli and her pet dog.jpg|thumb|Miss Marie Corelli and her pet dog]]

Mary Mills was born in London to Mary Elizabeth Mills, a servant of the Scottish poet and songwriter Dr [[Charles Mackay (author)|Charles Mackay]], her biological father, who was married to another woman at the time of young Mary's conception.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/137490/Marie-Corelli Marie Corelli] in ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''.</ref> 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 or descent from the [[Italian nobility]]. Her unreliability as a narrator 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://victorianpopularfiction.org/victorian-popular-fictions-5-1-3-turner/|title=Victorian Popular Fictions 5.1 3 Turner|date=28 June 2023}}</ref>

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, ''[[A Romance of Two Worlds]]'', in 1886. In her time, she was the most widely read author of fiction. Her works were collected by [[Winston Churchill]], [[Randolph Churchill]], and members of the [[British Royal Family]], among others.<ref>Coates & Warren Bell (1969)</ref> Yet although sales of Corelli's novels exceeded the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including [[Arthur Conan Doyle]], [[H. G. Wells]], and [[Rudyard Kipling]], critics often derided her work as "the favourite of the common multitude".

She faced criticism from the literary elite for her allegedly melodramatic writing. In ''[[The Spectator (1828)|The Spectator]]'', [[Grant Allen]] called her "a woman of deplorable talent who imagined that she was a genius, and was accepted as a genius by a public to whose commonplace sentimentalities and prejudices she gave a glamorous setting."<ref>Scott, p. 30.</ref> [[James Agate]] represented her as combining "the imagination of a [[Edgar Allan Poe|Poe]] with the style of an [[Ouida]] and the mentality of a nursemaid."<ref>Scott, p. 263.</ref><ref>Kirsten McLeod, introduction to Marie Corelli's ''Wormwood: a drama of Paris'', p. 9</ref>

A recurring theme in Corelli's books is her attempt to reconcile Christianity with [[reincarnation]], [[astral projection]], and other mystical ideas. She was associated at some point with the [[Fraternitas Rosae Crucis]]; a [[Rosicrucian]] and mystical organization,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schrodter|first1=Willy|title=A Rosicrucian Notebook: The Secret Sciences Used by Members of the Order|date=April 1992|publisher=Weiser Books, 1992|isbn=9780877287575|pages=293|edition=illustrated|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o_RXyW-XizkC&q=marie+corelli+was+a+rosicrucian&pg=PA167|access-date=7 May 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rosicrucian.50webs.com/various/who-was-marie-corelli.htm|title=Who was Marie Corelli?|website=rosicrucian.50webs.com|language=en-us|access-date=2017-05-07}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rosicrucian.org/history|title=Understanding reincarnation & esoteric teachings of Rosicrucians|website=The Rosicrucian Order, AMORC|access-date=2017-05-07}}</ref> and her books were a part of the foundation of today's corpus of [[Western esotericism|esoteric]] philosophy. Her portrait was painted by [[Helen Donald-Smith]].

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 games|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.<ref>Ransom (2013), [https://books.google.com/books?id=Xf6aoErcJQ4C&pg=PT100 p. 100].</ref>

The writer also gained some fame after her letter on the [[curse of the Pharaohs]] to ''[[New York World]]'' was published. Corelli claimed that she had warned [[George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon]] (one of the finders of the tomb of [[Tutankhamun]]) about the "dire punishment" likely to occur to those who rifle Egyptian tombs, claiming to cite an ancient book that indicated that poisons had been left after burials.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=q_xyTVxo8BkC&dq=Lord+Carnarvon%27s+death&pg=PT40] ''The Shadow King: The Bizarre Afterlife of King Tut's Mummy'', Jo Marchant, 2013, chapter 4. {{ISBN|0306821338}}</ref><ref>[''Ancient Egypt'', David P. Silverman, p. 146, Oxford University Press US, 2003, {{ISBN|0-19-521952-X}}]</ref>

===Personal life===
[[File:Mason Croft - DPLA - 60e122bf26e18fe19b8c07b52fed8ef7.jpg|thumb|Corelli lived and died in Stratford-upon-Avon, 1901{{ndash}}1924. Her house, "Mason Croft", is now the home of the [[Shakespeare Institute]].<br>Mason Croft in 1913.<br>]]

Corelli spent her final years in [[Stratford-upon-Avon]]. There she fought hard for the preservation of Stratford's 17th-century buildings, and donated money to help their owners remove the plaster or brickwork that often covered their original [[Timber framing|timber-framed]] façades.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990DEEDF173AE733A2575BC2A9609C946297D6CF|title=CARNEGIE AND CORELLI.; Sidney Lee Publishes a Letter Whioh Throws Light on the Stratford-on-Avon Library Fuss |work=[[The New York Times]]|date= June 28, 1903}}</ref> Novelist [[Barbara Comyns Carr]] mentions Corelli's guest appearance at an exhibition of Anglo-Saxon items found at [[Bidford-on-Avon]] in 1923.<ref>Comyns Carr (1985), p. 124.</ref> Corelli's eccentricity became well known. She would boat on the [[River Avon, Warwickshire|Avon]] in a [[gondola]], complete with a [[gondolier]], whom she had brought over from [[Venice]].<ref>[http://www.veniceboats.com/gondola-corelli-stratford.htm Venice Boats].</ref> In [[Mark Twain's Autobiography|his autobiography]], [[Mark Twain]], who had a deep dislike of Corelli, describes visiting her in Stratford and how the meeting changed his perception.

[[File:Bertha Vyver.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Bertha Vyver]]
For over forty years, Corelli lived with her companion, [[Bertha Vyver]],<ref>Frederico, pp. 162–86.</ref> to whom she left everything when she died. She did not identify herself as a [[lesbian]], but several biographers and critics have noted the frequent erotic descriptions of [[female beauty]] that appear in her novels, although they are expressed by men.<ref>Felski, pp. 130–31.</ref><ref>Frederico, p. 116.</ref><ref>Masters, p. 277.</ref>

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.<ref>MacLeod, p. 21.</ref><ref>Frederico, p. 144.</ref><ref>Julia Kuehn, [http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/corelli/kuehn7.html "Marie Corelli's Love Letters to Arthur Severn"].</ref>

During the [[World War I|First World War]], Corelli's personal reputation suffered when she was convicted of [[Rationing in the United Kingdom#First World War 1914–1918|food hoarding]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01npqws/features/makingtheseries|title=BBC One – Britain's Great War|publisher=BBC|date=10 February 2014}}.</ref>

[[File:Evesham Road cemetery.jpg|thumb|Marie Corelli died in Stratford and is buried there in the Evesham Road cemetery.]]

She died in Stratford and is buried there in the Evesham Road cemetery.<ref>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.</ref> Later Bertha Vyver was buried alongside her.