Description
Book SynopsisThis collection reappraises and retheorizes Marie Corelli’s diverse fictional writings and locates them in their contemporary literary and social context.
Marie Corelli (1855-1924) was a fabulously popular novelist in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Yet, in her day, critics railed against her taste for sentimentality, melodrama, supernatural worlds, and overt didacticism. Many critics are still ambivalent about her writing. However, in their reappraisal, the contributors to this volume largely circumvent the earlier critics and engage afresh with Corelli’s writing strategies; genre choices; representations of social issues; and ideas about science, metaphysics, and morality. Moving beyond the now outdated project of recovery, the volume also discusses Corelli’s literary market place, analysing both her publishing successes and her decline in popularity. An important theme throughout is Corelli’s troubled rel
Table of Contents
1. Introduction – Marie Corelli: A Critical Reappraisal 2. Moral Uncertainty and the Afterlife: Explaining the Popularity of Marie Corelli’s Early Novels 3. The Corellian Romance contra Modernity: The Treasure of Heaven and Innocent 4. ‘‘Je t’aime . . . moi non plus’’: Deconstructing Love in Open Confession to a Man from a Woman 5. The Genius in Ardath: The Story of A Dead Self 6. Marie Corelli’s Best-selling Electric Creed 7. Morals and Metaphysics: Marie Corelli, Religion and the Gothic 8. Marie Corelli’s Barabbas, The Sorrows of Satan and Generic Transition
