Marie Corelli 
The Sorrows of Satan 

The Sorrows of Satan (1895) is a masterpiece by Corelli's and it is a novel where her perspectives on society and religion are showcased the most clearly. What's more, is that it serves as a savage retort to her critics, who had criticized her past novel, Barabbas (1893). The novel's first pages are astonishingly gripping. Geoffrey Tempest, the narrator, draws his experience of destitution – misery that denies one of one's respect, as hunger transforms even the noblest person into a wrecked creature. As his last desire to make ends meet through journalism fails, Geoffrey is very close to ending it all when he gets a startling message from a Prince Lucio Rimânez. London, 1895, and Satan is at large. He is looking for somebody ethically strong enough to be able to withstand temptation, yet his chances at success seem bleak. Britain is a city of the corrupt. The aristocracy is monetarily and spiritually bankrupt; church pioneers no longer have any confidence in God; Victorian idealism has been ousted from writing and life; and sexual morality is being sabotaged by the vindictive principles of the 'New Woman'. Everything and everybody can be purchased, and it takes an extraordinarily high moral courage to oppose Satan's temptations.