Marie Corelli

The Mighty Atom by Marie Corelli is the touching story of a brilliantly clever young boy's upbringing by a father who wants his son to reject all personal and religious ideas. He is a scientist who wants only to proliferate his own ideas, and the havoc it causes as the boy's life seems to fall apart. Corelli writes her story with deep insight into the psychology and the antithesis of the irrational belief in nothingness but atoms. She delineates the mind of the boy's father, his mother and teacher to be grasping at a reality that isn't there, so to speak. The story unfolds in innocent suspense but moves to a climax of shocking revelations.