The Sorrows of Satan
Description of book
The Sorrows of Satan is an 1895 Faustian novel by Marie Corelli. It is widely regarded as one of the world's first best-sellers – partly due to an upheaval in the system British libraries used to purchase their books[citation needed], and partly due to its popular appeal. Roundly condemned by contemporary literary critics for Corelli's moralistic and prosaic style, it nonetheless had strong supporters, including Oscar Wilde and various members of royalty. Widely ignored in literary circles, it is increasingly regarded as an influential fin de siècle text. The book is occasionally subtitled "Or the Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire".
Mary Mackay (1 May 1855 – 21 April 1924), known by her pseudonym Marie Corelli, was an English novelist.
She enjoyed a period of great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Sales of Corelli's novels exceeded the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling, although critics often derided her work as "the favourite of the common multitude".