I
described some painful events in the life of the Queen of Victorian
Best-sellers Marie Corelli recently. Writing about an episode
in Rudyard Kipling's childhood gave me the idea of
investigating Marie Corelli's childhood.
There
is little information available and much confusion about her
parentage. She deliberately muddied the water herself; she obscured
her past with a fog of lies and deceit. We will never know for sure
whether the Scottish poet, scholar and journalist Charles Mackay was
her real father or, as she insisted, her adopted father. It is likely
that her mother was a servant and Marie was born illegitimate. She
would have seen this as a terrible disgrace, something to be ashamed
of and kept hidden; she claimed Venetian blood and gave herself an
Italian name in compensation and to hide her real parentage.
What
we do know is that despite having a kind man as her official father,
she was very unhappy as a child.
