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2? NEW EVIDENCE ON MARIE CORELLI AND ARTHUR SEVERN: SOME UNPUBLISHED LETTERS By Richard L. Kowalczyk (University of Detroit) Marie Corelli produced twenty-seven romances from 1886 to 1923 and made a fortune. Biographers, however, have unintentionally diverted interest from the adulation she commanded In the drawing -room to the so-called enigma of her lifeT* Comments on the biographical mysteries are often unsubstantiated and Inaccurate. Her real Importance rests on the fact that her works reflect the tastes of the mass reading public in England at the turn of the century. The nexus of the problem concerns the assumption that Corelli either imagined or exaggerated the extent of her Influence upon the landscape painter, Arthur Severn. Since no new evidence has been available until now, writers have accepted Bertha Vyver's casual, single reference to Severn In her Memoirs of Marie Corelli to mean that the novelist had a passing acquaintance with the painter and that their friendship was brief and lneonsequential .2 But Corelli's fictionalized diary. Open Confession: From a Woman to a Man, suggests a different character to this relationships I smile at myself in scorn — my idol has not only feet of clay but a whole dull body of the same gross and heavy material! I never Judged you capable of stabbing the heart of a woman you professed to adore, nor could I have believed you would develop ungratefulness of which a dog might be ashamed. ... I realise now, that during the whole period of your assumed devotion to me, and while you took advantage of my hospitality, used my friends, and assisted yourself through my influence, you were busy preparing the way to a safe shelter from the worries of the world. . . .3 More recent statements consider the novelist's claims that she furthered Severn's reputation as a projection of an abnormal ego; however, very little notice is taken of their literary and artistic collaboration in a work published four years after their first meeting In I906. I have discovered new evidence in the unpublished letters of Marie Corelli to Arthur Severn and to his wife, Joan Agnew Severn, which Indicates that the novelist Invited the artist to assist her in the "allegory," The Devil's Motor, by providing interpretative sketches, that this collaboration did in fact spread his reputation, and that the novelist thus had at least some reason for accusing the painter of Ingratitude. Furthermore, these unpublished holographs, now part of the holdings in the Uni- 28 verslty of Detroit Library, provide details on the nature of Corelli 's early friendship with the Severns about which biographers are s lient.4 Eileen Bigland's sketchy discussion (Marie Corelli The Woman and the Legend) of Corelli·s romantic infatuation for the landscape painter and member of the Royal Academy implies that the popular writer, when she first met Arthur Severn, decided to win him for her "soul-mate." Furthermore, Blgland asserts that the novelist believed that "her love was returned" and that Corelli acted very coollytoward Mrs. Joan Severn.5 Such assertions have become the basis for the charge that Corelli's condemnation of the painter is that of a misdirected sentimentalist and egomaniac. However, the novelist's correspondence clarifies the facts about the first days of the lengthy and turbulent friendship between Ouida's successor and Ruskir's disciple.6 Whatever mysterious relationship may have developed later between Marie Corelli and her "Pendragon" (not "Pendennis,·1 as biographers assert),7 a chief reason for their early association In I906 seems to have been a genuine and mutual concern for the condition of art and painting in England. A practical result of the developing friendship was their collaboration in the publication of The Devil's Motor. Unpublished holographs, addressed either to Arthur Severn or to his wife Joan, reveal Corelll's Initial attitude toward the married couple to be warm, occasionally formal. They also reveal the novelist's intentions to provide the water-colorlst with surroundings which were conducive to his "genius and talent." Marie Corelli voices concern for the quality of artistic production at this period and makes her newly purchased home at Mason Croft available to Severn so that...

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