The Devils Motor, Marie Corelli
The Devils Motor, Marie Corelli
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The Devil's Motor

Author: Marie Corelli

Series: Marie Corelli, The Victorian writer who outsold Doyle, Kipling, and Wells put together

Narrator: Charles Featherstone

Unabridged: 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/04/2024


Synopsis

A thrilling tale of the Devil's final ride between the darkness and dawn, watching as mankind falls victim to the curse of progress and speed, rejecting all peace and silence, all reflection and godliness. As he goes, he gathers phantoms and monsters, hell-bound victims and dark shadows, all the while telling the natural world to rejoice, for it will soon be free of the curse of Man.
Written in 1910, this Christian tome is as relevant today as it was a century ago, as people fall victim to the next and fastest thing, falling away from God in the process. The devil's visceral delight in modernity is poetic and chilling "Come, ye pretenders to holiness—ye thieves of virtue, who give ‘charity’ to the poor with the right hand, and cheat your neighbour with the left! Come, all ye morphia-fed vampires and slaves to poison!—grasp at my wheels and cling!”
Corelli lived in the spaces between. Even her birth is still shrouded in mystery, and was the grandest Romance and Christian writer of her era. She outsold Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling put together. Critics hated her, calling her "the favourite of the common multitude", and she hated them in return. A favourite of Winston Churchill, Queen Victoria and William Gladstone. She was also a lesbian, with a her 'companion' of 40 years to whom she left her entire estate and is buried alongside her in a couples grave. Her friends included Mark Twain, Ouida, the Empress Frederick of Germany, and Alfred Tennyson, while her writing tried to reconcile Christianity with reincarnation and astral projection.
"a woman of deplorable talent who imagined that she was a genius, and was accepted as a genius by a public to whose commonplace sentimentalities and prejudices she gave a glamorous setting." - Grant Allen
"the imagination of a Poe with the style of an Ouida and the mentality of a nursemaid." -James Agate

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tara on March 01, 2020

I had the pleasure of reading a first edition illustrated copy of this, and it was divine. I'm fascinated by Marie Corelli now. She was far ahead of her time, personally and writing-wise.......more

Goodreads review by Zvonimir on May 31, 2020

Flamboyant writing, at moments its seems like its a imitation of Milton, but really pale, and lifeless.......more