Editing Marie Corelli (section)

===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.