Editing Marie Corelli (section)

==Public image==
[[File:Marie Corelli Fact and Fiction.jpg|thumb|An illustration from a 1904 ''[[Boston Post]]'' story contrasting idealized images of Corelli with "an actual sketch made in court".]]
Corelli was known to fabricate or exaggerate many details of her life. For example, she consistently claimed (in public and in private) that she had been seventeen years old when her first novel, ''[[A Romance of Two Worlds]]'', was published in 1886, putting her year of birth at 1868 or 1869.{{sfn|Masters|1978|p=4-5}} This was repeated in contemporary biographies, though it is now believed that she was born in 1855. When she assumed the name "Marie Corelli" at the beginning of her career, she also took on a false backstory, writing to her first publisher, [[George Bentley (publisher)|George Bentley]], "I am Venetian and can trace myself back to the famous musician [[Arcangelo Corelli]]",{{sfn|Masters|1978|p=57}} and on other occasions claimed to descend from the [[Doges of Venice]].{{sfn|Waller|2006|p=772}}

Corelli avoided being seen in public, and according to biographer [[Brian Masters]], was possessed of a "positive terror of being photographed". She finally allowed a photograph of herself to be published as the frontispiece of her 1906 novel ''Treasure of Heaven'', though it was apparently airbrushed to depict her as "a sweet young lady in her early twenties".{{sfn|Masters|1978|pp=3-4}} Around the same time, [[Mark Twain]] wrote the following description of Corelli's appearance in his diary during a visit to Stratford:

<blockquote>She is about fifty years old but has no grey hairs; she is fat and shapeless; she has a gross animal face; she dresses for sixteen, and awkwardly and unsuccessfully and pathetically imitates the innocent graces and witcheries of that dearest and sweetest of all ages...{{sfn|Masters|1978|p=4}}</blockquote>