The Hired Baby

Written by Marie Corelli

Narrated by Cathy Dobson

Marie Corelli (1855 - 1924) was an eccentric British novelist who enjoyed 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 and she was the most widely read popular author of her day.

Her fans included Winston Churchill, Mark Twain and the British Royal Family.

The Hired Baby is a short story which gives a breathtaking snapshot of Victorian London life.

Liz, a young street rents a sickly newborn by the day from its grasping low-life parents, in the hope of attracting greater sympathy from passers by. She encounters mised reactions, from cruel scorn to genuine charity.

She visits a Catholic church, and is mystified as to why people pray to a statue of a woman with a baby. Over time, Liz develops a deep love for the sick baby, often denying herself food in order to buy milk for the infant.

As the baby grows weaker, Liz's life too seems to lose meaning and purpose, until one New Year's Eve the situation comes to a head.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Door Consulting
• Release date: Dec 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781467675635

Marie Corelli

Marie Corelli (1855-1924) was an English novelist. Born Mary Mackay in London, she was sent to a Parisian convent to be educated in 1866. Returning to England in 1870, Corelli worked as a pianist and began her literary career with the novel A Romance of Two Worlds (1886). A favorite writer of Winston Churchill and the British Royal Family, Corelli was the most popular author of her generation. Known for her interest in mysticism and the occult, she earned a reputation through works of fantasy, Gothic, and science fiction. From 1901 to 1924, she lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, where she continued to write novels, short story collections, and works of non-fiction. Corelli, whose works have been regularly adapted for film and the theater, was largely rejected by the male-dominated literary establishment of her time. Despite this, she is remembered today as a pioneering author who wrote for the public, not for the critics who sought to deny her talent.