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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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1890. Another work by Corelli, this novel is a drama of Paris. The unhappy hero of this drama is presented to the English reader not as an example of what is exceptionally tragic and uncommon, but simply as a very ordinary type of a large and ever-increasing class. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Wormwood
This was a very good book, the punctuation took a little getting used to, but the story was very good.

The Green Fairy
In 1890 Marie Corelli published her fifth novel, "Wormwood: A Drama of Paris".After moving considerably closer to Fantasy in "Ardath", Marie returns to her gothic/occult romance style with this book.The subject of the book is the degredation of society through the vice of drinking, and specifically drinking Absinthe (a.k.a. grande wormwood or la fée verte (the Green Fairy), a spirit which was thought to be addictive and a psychoactive drug and to cause madness over time.As a result, it was attacked by conservatives and prohibitionists and was eventually banned for a time in many countries.The person addicted, or the `absentheur' in this story is Gaston Beauvais, the narrator of the story.

I have read that this novel is broken into three parts, but the copy of it which I read did not do so.The narrative of the story is told by Gaston from a point after he has destroyed his life and the lives of those around him, looking back on the road which brought him to this point.Gaston starts the novel as a young man who has everything going for him.He is successful in business, working for his father for a bank.His father's close friend is the Comte de Charmilles, and Gaston courts the Comte's daughter Pauline.Gaston is completely taken in by Pauline's beauty, and barely notices Pauline's closest friend and relation Héloïse, who is her cousin.Gaston takes his time in courting Pauline, even after he is resolved to marry her.It is at the same time as he intends to propose that Silvion Guidél, the nephew of the Curé comes to live with the Curé's house.In a rather forced piece of foreshadowing, Gaston takes a dislike to Silvion at the instant he first hears the name.Gaston proposes and his proposal is accepted, and as time passes and the wedding grows closer, there are more and more signs that there is an issue arising between Pauline and Silvion, but in typical Corelli fashion Gaston fails to notice anything wrong despite a narrative which could only be told by someone who was incredibly observant.At last, Pauline confesses to Gaston and pleads that he will do nothing to Silvion for honor's sake.Gaston struggles with what to do and after finally deciding to step aside he is convinced by an artist friend, André Gessonex to try absinthe, an event which completely changes Gaston's mind and he decides that he must have revenge and destroy the lives of Silvion and Pauline.One can easily see how this would be the end of the first section of the book.

The second section would likely be the period in which Gaston keeps his new found obsession secret while he gets his revenge.He intends to immediately challenge Silvion, but finds that Silvion has run away back to his parents home away from Paris and that he has also decided to immediately become a priest.He keeps this information from Pauline and tells her that they should keep the situation secret for now and proceed as if they still intend to be married.Pauline trusts him but as the time passes and the wedding gets closer she becomes more and more distressed.Because of the dishonor it would bring on her, she has even kept the secret from Héloïse, though Héloïse is certain that something has gone wrong. The night before the wedding, Pauline confronts Gaston and tells him that though it appears they will get married, she will never love him, and Gaston reminds her that they are not married "yet".On the day of the wedding, in front of all the guests, Gaston declares that he will not marry Pauline, and reveals the reason in front of all.His father is furious for the way Gaston has purposely embarrassed his friend and been as cruel as possible and tells Gaston to leave Paris for a while.This would likely be the end of the second section.

The third section deals with Gaston destroying his life and all those who surround him.Everyone he knew is touched in a negative way by him.He commits horrendous crimes and shows little or no remorse, though at other times he seems aware of the monster he has become.I thought the writing in this section was well done, because it shifts from the narration glorifying the deeds to being ashamed of them over and over, as one would expect from someone suffering from the addition to this drug of madness.

Overall I enjoyed this book, though not quite as much as "Ardath".It has some issues with the writing in that Corelli seems to want to put an exclamation point at the end of every piece of dialog and even in much of the narration.I don't recall her doing this to such an extent in her previous books, but perhaps I should go back and take another look.I also miss the well done fantasy section of "Ardath" as this book is much more straight forward story, though I suppose one does get a feel for the fantastic with some of the hallucinations which haunt Gaston in the final section.Still, despite those problems this is easily my second favorite of Corelli's novels up to this point.

An excellent edition of an overlooked pulp classic!
Corelli is a wonderful writer and it is about time her books receive the academic notice they deserve. There is an unfortunate academic snobbery that smells of if-it-isn't-Joyce-it's-not-literature in many circles. Get Over Yourselves! This book, and the Victorian Sensation Fiction movement that produced it, is wonderful! Take off the seat-belt and return to reading for the pure joy of it.Wormwood is a blast to read- hyperbolic, overblown, yes!The monkey-boy is worth the price of the book alone, but then add on the creepy trips to the Paris mortuary, the weird violinist, and crazed, absinthe induced tripping, and the book is a total delight! (seriously, it should come with a sound track as you read- You can almost hear the BUM-BUUUMMMMMMMMMMMM of an orchestra at key points, Oh Pauline!!!! Don't JUMP!)The intro is well written and informative- It's great to see Corelli get noticed again. She was a incredibly strong womanwith a powerful imagination. Bring it on! (Grad students... are you listening? There is a TON of unchartered territory in Corelli- Great thesis topics abound in her books!) this edition rocks!

Fin-de-Siecle' meets "Reefer Madness"!!
There should really be two reviews here; one for Corelli's work and another for the work of Kristen Macleod, the editor and academic who wrote the introductory material. Since KMC's material comes first in the text, I will deal with it in that order.

The introductory essay is an obvious attempt to glorify Corelli's work and place the pulp novelist in the upper reaches of the cannon along with writers like Oscar Wilde, who is attacked directly in the text (which is pretty funny, really -- if there was any writer who was marginalized for the issues writers like Macleod supports, it was Wilde. Her attack misses the mark by miles) and whose importance the writer attempts to minimize. Sigh. This is literary criticism of what Harold Bloom so rightly labelled the "School of Resentment". Corelli was a fine writer, entertaining and enjoyable, but to place her histrionic, paranoid pulp on the same level with Joyce and Faulkner is just plain goofy. Give it up.

The novel itself a BLAST. Corelli's over-the-top prose style introduces a young French banker and wannabe literati named Gaston (what else would he be named?) who is gradually seduced away from respectability and into the louched life by painter Andre Gessonex. Gaston soon finds himself a murderous addict in thrall to the wiles of the irresistable Green Fairy and is unable to save himself or the women he loves. He stalks the streets of Belle Epoque Paris like a stoned Jack the Ripper, ready for death and dissolution.

The translation is great: it includes Corelli's footnotes (did you know that the French call waiters "Garcon"? Apparently Corelli felt it important enough to note, along with a host of other dubious entries.) and keeps the amazingly brisk, derisive and hysterical tone high throughout.

I recommend this novel highly for absinthe lovers, just skip the introduction if you don't have a strong stomach for foolishness. ... Read more

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When Fabio awakens in the family crypt after being prematurely buried, he finds new cause for living in a vendetta against those who have done him wrong. A Victorian thriller! ... Read more

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The Master-Christian. please visit www.valdebooks.com for a full list of titles ... Read more

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A CLOUD floated slowly above the mountain peak. Vast, fleecy and white as the crested foam of a sea-wave, it sailed through the sky with a divine air of majesty, seeming almost to express a consciousness of its own grandeur. Over a spacious tract of Southern California it extended its snowy canopy, moving from the distant Pacific Ocean across the heights of the Sierra Madre, now and then catching fire at its extreme edge from the sinking sun, which burned like a red brand flung on the roof of a roughly built hut situated on the side of a sloping hollow in one of the smaller hills. The door of the hut stood open; there were a couple of benches on the burnt grass outside, one serving as a table, the other as a chair. Papers and books were neatly piled on the table,--and on the chair, if chair it might be called, a man sat reading. His appearance was not prepossessing at a first glance, though his actual features could hardly be seen, so concealed were they by a heavy growth of beard. In the way of clothing he had little to trouble him. Loose woollen trousers, a white shirt, and a leathern belt to keep the two garments in place, formed his complete outfit, finished off by wide canvas shoes. A thatch of dark hair, thick and ill combed, apparently served all his need of head covering, and he seemed unconscious of, or else indifferent to, the hot glare of the summer sky which was hardly tempered by the long shadow of the floating cloud. At some moments he was absorbed in reading,--at others in writing. Close within his reach was a small note-book in which from time to time he jotted down certain numerals and made rapid calculations, frowning impatiently as though the very act of writing was too slow for the speed of his thought. There was a wonderful silence everywhere,--a silence such as can hardly be comprehended by anyone who has never visited wide-spreading country, over- canopied by large stretches of open sky, and barricaded from the further world by mountain ranges which are like huge walls built by a race of Titans. The dwellers in such regions are few, --there is no traffic save the coming and going of occasional pack-mules across the hill tracks--no sign of modern civilisation. Among such deep and solemn solitudes the sight of a living human being is strange and incongruous, yet the man seated outside his hut had an air of ease and satisfied proprietorship not always found with wealthy owners of mansions and park-lands. He was so thoroughly engrossed in his books and papers that he hardly saw, and certainly did not hear, the approach of a woman who came climbing wearily up the edge of the sloping hill against which his cabin presented itself to the view as a sort of fitment, and advanced towards him carrying a tin pail full of milk. This she set down within a yard or so of him, and then, straightening her back, she rested her hands on her hips, and drew a long breath. For a minute or two he took no notice of her. She waited. She was a big handsome creature, sun-browned and black-haired, with flashing dark eyes lit by a spark that was not originally caught from heaven. Presently, becoming conscious of her presence, he threw his book aside and looked up. ... Read more

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THIS 20 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Song of Miriam and Other Stories, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597601. ... Read more

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Subtitled "A Dream of the World's Tragecy," here is Marie Corelli's 1893 novel. [Facsimile reprint of the 1894 edition.] ... Read more

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THIS 36 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Love of Long Ago and Other Stories, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766183718. ... Read more

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The Sorrows of Satan was one of the first modern bestsellers and was influential in establishing some of the major trends in twentieth-century bestselling fiction.

The setting is London, 1895, and the Devil is on the loose. He is searching for someone morally strong enough to resist temptation, but there seems little chance he will succeed. Britain is all but totally corrupt.The aristocracy is financially and spiritually bankrupt; church leaders no longer believe in God; Victorian idealism has been banished from literature and life; and sexual morality is being undermined by the pernicious doctrines of the "New Woman." Everything and everyone is up for sale, and it takes a special kind of moral courage to resist the Devil's seductions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A masterpiece
This is a true work of a master, as original as it comes. The subject she writes about is so complex but she does it in a very simple way. The question is simple, as humans would we make a different chance from the devil, if we were in the same position, and why does the devil do what it does.

True Romance in the literary sense
I first heard of (or actually first saw the name of) Marie Corelli in The Books of My Life by Henry Miller.I was curious so I ordered The Sorrows of Satan: Or the Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire. Once again, Mr Millers judgment has proven impeccable.I will refrain fromgoing off on a tangent about all the literature I have explored throughHenry Millers reccommendation. (The Books of My Life sits on my headboard) This is supposed to be a review of Ms. Corellis book.

This is asensational book.I had a difficult time putting it down.Readers willcome to care for the fate of one Geoffrey Tempest even though he has damnedhimself through his own choice and ignorance.There is a certain naivityin his corruption.Prince Rimanez leads him down the path of temptationwith great sorrow.Casting Satan as a sympathetic character may not appealto Christian fundamentalists but it is a great twist.(It has been done abit in Hollywood but this predates the movies.)The devil may truly seekredemption.One gets the sense that Corelli has empathy even for thedevil. He is, after all, only doing what he must do.It is his plight tolead men into temptation.Geoffrey Tempest is the one who has a choice. He chooses the easy path and ultimately he pays the price.One iscertainly glad that he does escape from Prince Rimanez grip at the end. The angel Mavis Clare is able to save him.He is able to redeem himselfbefore the final plunge.He turns back to God and is given a secondchance.

I am not going to enter into the debate over whether or notMavis Clare is supposed to be symbolic of Marie Corelli herself but I thinkthe book is clearly a shot at the critics of the time who constantlyostracized Corelli in spite her phenomenal sales.This book will stimulatereaders on both an emotional and spiritual level. I anxiously await readingother books by Marie Corelli.My literary debt to Henry Miller takesanother grand leap.

A great forgotten melodrama
It was the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century and with its hypnotic descriptions and delicious dramatic irony; it's easy to see why.This Faustian tale of a man's corruption by wealth, society and his own vanity under the guidance of a devilish temptor while common enough has a unique twist in that the devil himself hates his job of temptation as it divides him from heaven.The reader can delight in the double meanings of the novel, knowing what the hero cannot see in his "benefactor".

The book is melodramatic, and at times longwinded, and sadly occassionally whiny, but it is strangely absorbing even when it descends into silliness, and the characters can be understood and to some extent sympathized with.It is not one of the great works, but it is a work of great conception. ... Read more

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Subjects: England -- FictionNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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THIS 32 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Song of Miriam and Other Stories, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597601. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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1926. It is well known in literary circles that the popular romancist, Marie Corelli, began her career as the writer of verse. Some of these poems were never published, others are scattered through the various novels that have made her so well known. In this collection, the poems are in the order Ms. Corelli left them and wished them to be printed. ... Read more

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THIS 26 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Love of Long Ago and Other Stories, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766183718. ... Read more

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THIS 18 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Song of Miriam and Other Stories, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597601. ... Read more

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The following story is of the simplest character, purposely so designed.The personages who figure in the tale are drawn absolutely from life.I have hopes that the Philosopher though selfish, may be liked, when he is known, for his unselfishness, and the Sentimentalist may waken a sister-sympathy among those many charming women, who though wishing to be gentle and just to their admirers, do not always know their own minds in affairs of love.Whether my heroine chose the right partner for life is for my readers to determine.I myself am not more sure about it then she was. ... Read more

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THIS 22 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Free Opinions Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597407. ... Read more

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1918. This marvelous work of fiction reveals the concepts of faith, logic, reason, opinion, wisdom, eternity, and their influence on the heroine who becomes reborn and lives as the light lives. A fictional but true account of how the spirit moves us to become masters in the drama of life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Enthralling account in search of the soul!
Amazing that this book exists today as it was scarce in its own time!Corelli reworks one her favorite themes, that of eternal youth."Young Diana" borrows themes from Frankenstein depicting how trying to regenerate one's youth often results in monstrous soulless immortality.It's an eerie scientific 'femme fatale' adventure and despite the moral message (or perhaps because of it), quite a fun read! ... Read more

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THIS 30 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Love of Long Ago and Other Stories, by Marie Corelli. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766183718. ... Read more