A Faustian novel and bestseller of its time, focused on Geoffrey, a starving author. The post delivers three letters, the first from a friend who offers to help with an introduction. The second advises him he has inherited money. The third has been written by Lucio, an aristocrat purporting to know the best way to invest his newfound wealth. It soon becomes apparent that Lucio is the Devil. Corelli enjoyed a period of great literary success from the publication of her first novel in 1886 until World War I. Her 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." A recurring theme in Corelli's books is her attempt to reconcile Christianity with reincarnation, astral projection, and other mystical ideas. Her books were a part of the foundation of today's New Age religion.