Information
This was the pseudonym of Mary Mackay who in her day was one of the country’s most popular novelists, despite almost universal critical hostility to her overblown literary style. Admired by Queen Victoria, Wilde and Gladstone, her romantic melodramas such as ‘Barabbas’ (1893), ‘The Sorrows of Satan’ (1895) and ‘The Mighty Atom’ (1896) echoed her extravagant personality which eventually made her and her writings objects of ridicule. The same weakness for hyperbole is evident in her description of the Shell Grotto at Margate as ‘one of the most beautiful, fantastic and interesting relics of the ancient days that exist in England or anywhere else.’ She included a description of her visit in a book of short stories called ‘Cameos’, published in 1896.
Quotations
There is something not exactly high-class in the name of Margate. Sixpenny teas are suggested, and a vulgar flavour of shrimps floats unbidden in the air … But there is something at Margate beside the air , the sands and the sea : something that calls for recognition from students, antiquarians, lovers of romance and savants of all classes and nations : something that, just because it is at plebeian Margate, has escaped the proper notice and admiration it so strongly deserves. If the curious and beautiful subterranean temple … existed anywhere but at Margate, it would certainly be acknowledged as one of the wonders of the world, which it undoubtedly is.
Place | Extract |
| Margate | This was the pseudonym of Mary Mackay who in her day was one of the country’s most popular novelists, despite almost universal critical hostility to her overblown literary style... |
