Bøker av Marie Corelli

Als einfühlsamer Wegweiser für die geistige Orientierung Suchender im 21. Jahrhundert verdient das Werk Barabbas eine Neubelebung. Es rückt das Ostermysterium für den Leser in erfahrbare Gegenwart. In unvergleichlich bildhafter Sprache erzählt Marie Corelli von der Freilassung des Barabbas und der Kreuzigung Jesu. Barabbas erhebt sich als Sinnbild der zweifelnden und verzweifelten Anteile im Menschen aus den Fangstricken niederen Daseins. Seine Zeit der Läuterung erfüllt sich durch den Opfertod auf Golgatha. Der Eingeweihte Melchior erscheint vor Barabbas an den entscheidenden Kreuzungen von Irrtum und Wahrheit und drängt ihn, den Wandel zu Höherem binnen weniger Tage zu vollziehen. Judith, ein bildschönes verruchtes Weib, der profan denkende Judas und der in kalter Klugheit erstarrte Hohepriester Kaiphas verfestigen sich zu Prüfsteinen seiner Gesinnung. Aus dem materiellen Kerker befreite ihn das Volk, aber wird Barabbas auch von der Knechtschaft seiner groben Leidenschaften loskommen?

Contents: An artist's studio; Mysterious potion; Three visions; A dance and a promise; Cellini's story; Hotel Mars and its owner; Zara and Prince Ivan; A symphony in the air; An electric shock; My strange departure; A miniature creation; Secrets of the sun and moon; Sociable converse; Electric creed; Death by lightning; A struggle for the mastery

London, -and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up from the clammy crowded streets, -London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and tower upon tower, -with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible, encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud betokened so much as the shadow of a sto