This tragic melodrama follows the life of Innocent, a good woman outcast due to her own bastardy. No one knew at the time of issue that Marie was herself a bastard child and the heartfelt, heart-rendering life she imagines happening to someone whose secret becomes known was indeed reflective of Marie's own fears. Marie Corelli (1 May 1855 - 21 April 1924) was a British novelist. She enjoyed a period of great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Corelli's novels sold more copies than the combined sales of popular contemporaries, including Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling, although critics often derided her work as "the favourite of the common multitude."