Holy Orders

(goodreads) A fictional account about rural England and its people. (goodreads review by RW) Correlli is one of my favorite moralist Victorian novelists. Her themes are simple/straightforward and most are still relevant today. Some 21st Century readers might find her writing as cumbersome, but that is one of the reasons why I like to read and re-read her books. She writes before writing became abbreviated. Luckily for her, her career was almost over when Hemingway started slashing words from text and starting a less is better phase of literature. Holy Orders is melancholy, sweet, sad and triumphal. Good overcomes evil, if only within the 500 + pages of this book. ** (goodreads, about author) Marie Corelli (born Mary MacKay) was a best-selling British novelist of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, whose controversial works of the time often label her as an early advocate of the New Age movement. In the 1890’s Marie Corelli’s novels were eagerly devoured by millions in England, America and the colonies. Her readers ranged from Queen Victoria and Gladstone, to the poorest of shop girls. In all she wrote thirty books, the majority of which were phenomenal best sellers. Despite the fact that her novels were either ignored or belittled by the critics, at the height of her success she was the best selling and most highly paid author in England. She was the daughter of poet, journalist, author, anthologist, novelist, and songwriter Charles MacKay. Her brother was the poet Eric MacKay. [Open Confession: To a Man From a Woman /1925 / ]