Marie Corelli dined with the Prince of Wales, entertained Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry, and split Stratford-upon-Avon into warring factions. In the 1890s, her novels were eagerly devoured by millions in England, America and the colonies. Her readers ranged from Queen Victoria and Gladstone to the poorest of shopgirls. In all she wrote 30 books, the majority of which were phenomenal bestsellers, and she dealt with all the popular themes of the day - spiritualism, science, romance, transcendentalism and religion. This biography describes Corelli's rise and considers her as a phenomenon of the Victorian age. Setting Corelli's story against the context of her time, the book examines how she blazed into fame from nothing to become the bestselling novelist of her age.