The Sorrows of Satan

The Sorrows of Satan (1895) was one of the first modern bestsellers and was influential in establishing some of the major trends in twentieth-century bestselling fiction. 'Breakers ahead! Throughout the world, storm and danger and doom! Doom and Death! - but afterwards - Life!' London, 1895, and the Devil is on the loose. He is searching for someone morally strong enough to resist temptation, but there seem little chance he will succeed. Britain is all but totally corrupt. The aristocracy is financially and spiritually bankrupt; church leaders no longer believe in God; Victorian idealism has been banished from literature and life; and sexual morality is being undermined by the pernicious doctrines of the 'New Woman'. Everything and everyone is up for sale, and it takes a special kind of moral courage to resist the Devil's seductions.