George Eric Mackay was an English minor poet, now remembered as the sponging half-brother of Marie Corelli

Marie Corelli

Marie Corelli was a British novelist. She enjoyed a period of 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...

, the best-selling novelist. Mackay and Corelli, born Mary Mackay, were the children of Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay was a Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer.-Life:Charles Mackay was born in Perth, Scotland. His father was by turns a naval officer and a foot soldier; his mother died shortly after his birth. Charles was educated at the Caledonian Asylum, London, and at Brussels, but spent...

, by different mothers (Mary was illegitimate, with Charles marrying her mother subsequently).

As a poet he is described as "execrable", and reliant on Corelli's promotion of his works. Mackay achieved some reputation in his time for Letters of a Violinist (1886). It sold 35,000 copies; he repaid Corelli's efforts by implying he wrote her novels.

A 1940 biography of Corelli, George Bullock's Marie Corelli: The Life and Death of a Best-Seller, hinted that the relationship was incestuous; this has generally been discounted, though Eric's laziness and lack of scruples are acknowledged.. This was an old rumour, attributed to Edmund Gosse

Edmund Gosse

Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...

.