The Sorrows Of Satan

The Sorrows of Satan (1895) was one of the first modern bestsellers and was influential in establishing some of the major trends in twentieth-century bestselling fiction. `Breakers ahead! Throughout the world, storm and danger and doom! Doom and Death! - but afterwards - Life!' London, 1895, and the Devil is on the loose. He is searching for someone morally strong enough to resist temptation, but there seem little chance he will succeed. Britain is all but totally corrupt. The aristocracy is financially and spiritually bankrupt; church leaders no longer believe in God;Victorian idealism has been banished from literature and life; and sexual morality is being undermined by the pernicious doctrines of the `New Woman'. Everything and everyone is up for sale, and it takes a special kind of moral courage to resist the Devil's seductions.

Originally published in 1895, The Sorrows of Satan is a 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 and partly due to its popular appeal. Roundly condemned by critics for Corelli's moralistic and prosaic style it nonetheless had strong supporters in Oscar Wilde and various members of royalty. It is increasingly regarded as an influential fin de siècle text.

Following a conflict with the dreaded Wyrm, the barnyard animals try to piece together their shattered lives while unaware that their enemy plans new attacks.

Despite the ridicule of reviewers, Marie Corelli (1855-1924) was the most popular novelist of her time. Federico (English, James Madison University) points out the creative, combative and contradictory nature of Corelli's participation in the culture, and argues that her attempts to create her own image illuminate continuing debates about literary value, class hegemony, and gender politics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Reproduction of the original.

"Ziska" is a supernatural and thrilling story about love, passion, treason and revenge, set in the late 19th-century Cairo. Ziska is a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian woman who was killed by her lover once he got tired of her. The reincarnated Ziska is beautiful, mysterious, seductive, and has stolen the hearts of all the young men, including the famous French painter Armand Gervase, who has just arrived in Cairo. Gervase immediately falls for Ziska, feeling that he knows her from somewhere. At same time, he is the only man Ziska has eyes for, because he looks exactly like the man who killed her...

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The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles - throughout history the Prince of Darkness, the Western world's most powerful symbol of evil, has taken many names and shapes. Jeffrey Burton Russell here chronicles the remarkable story of the Devil from antiquity to the present. While recounting how past generations have personified evil, he deepens our understanding of the ways in which people have dealt with the enduring problem of radical evil.After a compelling essay on the nature of evil, Russell uncovers the origins of the concept of the Devil in various early cultures and then traces its evolution in Western thought from the time of the ancient Hebrews through the first centuries of the Christian era. Next he turns to the medieval view of the Devil, focusing on images found in folklore, scholastic thought, art, literature, mysticism, and witchcraft. Finally, he follows the Devil into our own era, where he draws on examples from theology, philosophy, art, literature, and popular culture to describe the great changes in this traditional notion of evil brought about by the intellectual and cultural developments of modern times.Is the Devil an outmoded superstition, as most educated people today believe? Or do the horrors of the twentieth century and the specter of nuclear war make all too clear the continuing need for some vital symbol of radical evil? A single-volume distillation of Russell's epic tetralogy on the nature and personifcation of evil from ancient times to the present (published by Cornell University Press between 1977 and 1986), The Prince of Darkness invites readers to confront these and other critical questions as they explore the past faces of that figure who has been called the second most famous personage in Christianity.