Eric Mackay

George Eric Mackay (1835[1]–2 June 1898[2]) was an English minor poet, now remembered as the sponging half-brother of Marie Corelli, the best-selling novelist. Mackay and Corelli, born Mary Mackay, were the children of Charles Mackay,[3] by different mothers (Mary was illegitimate, with Charles marrying her mother subsequently[4]).

As a poet he is described as "execrable",[5] and reliant on Corelli's promotion of his works. His first works appeared in periodicals in the early 1860s;[6] he achieved some reputation in his time for Letters of a Violinist (1886). It sold 35,000 copies; he repaid Corelli's efforts by implying he wrote her novels.[7]

A 1940 biography of Corelli, George Bullock's Marie Corelli: The Life and Death of a Best-Seller, hinted that the relationship was incestuous; this has generally been discounted, though Eric's laziness and lack of scruples are acknowledged.[5] This was an old rumour, attributed to Edmund Gosse.[8]

Notes
  1. Obituaries, such as the one in the New York Times, reported Mackay's birthdate as 25 January 1851, an error repeated by numerous sources since then. Marie Corelli wrote to The Academy to correct the year to 1835. This is also the date given in Marie Corelli, the Writer and the Woman (1903) by Thomas Coates.
  2. New York Times obituary, 1898
  3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mackay, Charles" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 250.
  4. Marie Corelli Collection | Special Collections | Bryn Mawr College Library
  5. PDF, p. 23
  6. See, for example, two poems published in Once a Week in 1863
  7. Philip J. Waller, Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain 1870–1918 (2006), p. 467.
  8. Marie Corelli and her Occult Tales
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