The Treasure of Heaven

Publisher Marketing: Excerpt from The Treasure of Heaven: A Romance of Riches 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Contributor Bio:  Corelli, Marie Marie Corelli, pseudonym of Mary Mackay (born 1855, London, Eng.-died April 21, 1924, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick), best-selling English author of more than 20 romantic melodramatic novels. Her first book, A Romance of Two Worlds (1886), dealt with psychic experience-a theme in many of her later novels. Her first major success was Barabbas: A Dream of the World's Tragedy (1893), in which her treatment of the Crucifixion was designed to appeal to popular taste. The Sorrows of Satan (1895), also based on a melodramatic treatment of a religious theme, had an even wider vogue. Throughout her immensely successful career, she was accused of sentimentality and poor taste. Later in life she played an at times controversial role in efforts to preserve historic buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon.