18 November, 16:00-17:00 | hybrid
For more information, please email Prof. Sarah Parker
Join us to celebrate the publication of a new book by Dr Joanna Turner (Visiting Fellow in Victorian Literature, Loughborough University).
Joanna’s study Marie Corelli (Edward Everett Root, 2026) is about one of the most famous and bestselling writers that you may never have even heard of. The book showcases groundbreaking research into the early life and publishing career of Marie Corelli (1854-1924). This work was conducted during Joanna’s time as a PhD researcher in the English Department. Learn more about the book below.
The event will include a Q&A in which we will discuss the challenges of balancing publication with working on a doctoral thesis, and the process of writing your first book proposal. For this reason, the event will be of interest to Doctoral Researchers from across the School.
About the book:
Marie Corelli (1854-1924) was a bestselling novelist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known for her larger-than-life personality as much as her gripping popular fiction, she was an early example of author-as-brand.
Exploding myths perpetuated by commercial biography, Marie Corelli is the first book on Corelli to draw upon twenty-first century research methods, solving the longstanding mystery of her birth, and explaining her phenomenal emergence into Victorian popular culture.
This book also contextualises the publication of Corelli’s works, discusses her public speaking career, and evaluates her opinion on suffrage. Packed with rich detail, it engages throughout with scholarly debates on gender and sexuality, showing Corelli to be a complex and interesting figure, whose writing reveals much about societal issues of the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods.
Speaker biography:
Dr Joanna Turner is a Visiting Fellow in Victorian Literature at Loughborough University. Her research has transformed understanding of Marie Corelli’s early life and career. Joanna has written for Victorian Popular Fictions Journal, Victorian Periodicals Review, Notes & Queries, and The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing. With Dr Eleanor Dobson (University of Birmingham), she edited the 2025 special issue of Victoriographies: Marie Corelli, Reconsidered.