Editing Marie Corelli (section)

===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>