“Barabbas,” at once the most scriptural and devotional of its author’s long list of publications, has won almost as great a popularity as “The Sorrows of Satan,” being now in its thirty-seventh edition. “The Mighty Atom,” of which nearly a hundred thousand copies have been sold, is regarded by the public with singular affection, many children, as Mr. Arthur Lawrence has told us in The Strand Magazine, sending Miss Corelli “all sorts of loving and kindly greetings” as a token of their sympathy with little Lionel and Jessamine. The turbulent and stormy progress of “A Romance of Two Worlds” through the sea of criticism has made this book more familiar to the ear than some of its successors, though its sale has not equaled that of half a dozen of its fellow-works.
Miss Corelli’s average book is about as long as two novels of the ordinary six-shilling size put together; but she has published some comparatively short stories—notably “Boy,” “Ziska,” and “The Mighty Atom,” as well as some brochures; to wit, “Jane,” a society sketch; “Cameos;” and her tribute to the virtues of “Victoria the Good.” “Boy,” though published about the time that the “Master-Christian” appeared, was accorded the heartiest of welcomes, being now in its forty-sixth thousand.
In days to come the “Master-Christian” and “The Sorrows of Satan” will, we venture to predict, be sufficient alone to preserve their author’s fame; and, for those who delight in a love-story, “Thelma” will constitute a perpetual monument to its creator’s memory.
Owing to the unique and unclassifiable nature of her productions, it is impossible to award Miss Corelli a definite place in the world of letters. It is under any circumstances a thankless task to arrange writers as one would arrange boys in a class—according to merit. There are the poets, the historians, the novelists, the humorists, and—the critics. Marie Corelli occupies a peculiarly isolated position. A novelist she is, in the main, and yet hardly a novelist according to cut-and-dried formulas; she is, unquestionably, a poet, for there is many a song in her books not a whit less sweet because it is not set in measured verse and line. So we may safely leave her place in the Temple of Fame to be chosen by the votes of posterity, for there is one critic who is ever just, who goeth on his “everlasting journey” with gentle but continuous step; who condemns most books, with their writers, to oblivion, but who saves a certain few.
CHAPTER II
MARIE CORELLI’S CHILDHOOD—EARLY INFLUENCES—LITERARY BEGINNINGS—THE MACKAYS—FATHER AND SON
In explanation of an unannounced and unexpected afternoon visit in 1890, Mr. W. E. Gladstone said: “I came because I was curious to see for myself the personality of a young woman who could write so courageously and well, and in whose work I recognize a power working for good, and eminently calculated to sway the thoughts of the people.”
Such were the veteran statesman’s words—well remembered by a friend of the novelist’s who was present at that eventful meeting.
This young woman was Marie Corelli, the novelist, whom so many lesser men have abused, because, unlike Gladstone, they have not studied her work, or have done so only with the determination to find fault.
The baby girl for whom so distinguished a career was destined, was adopted, when but three months old, by Dr. Charles Mackay, that excellent journalist, poet, song writer, and author. The love between Dr. Mackay and his adopted daughter was one of the closest and most sweet of domestic experiences. When reverses and suffering came to the man of letters, his joy and consolation was in the careful training of the much-loved little girl; and in his closing years he had the satisfaction of knowing that she had fulfilled his hopes and achieved success.