Novelist and dramatist Hall Caine, though largely forgotten now, was a
hugely popular writer in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Born
Thomas Henry Hall Caine on May 14, 1853, in Runcorn, Cheshire, England,
his father was a Manx Man who moved to Liverpool, where he apprenticed
as a ship's smith. After Hall's birth (he hated the name Thomas and
never used it, even after he was knighted), the family moved back to
Liverpool, where young Hall grew up. Hall Caine frequently took many
trips to visit the Caine family on the Isle of Man.
He was apprenticed to an architect and surveyor and plied his trade as
a surveyor while self-educating himself through wide reading. He became
a lecturer and theatrical critic, which introduced him to some
influential people such as actor Sir
Henry Irving and author
Bram Stoker, who dedicated
Dracula (1931) to him. He became the
secretary, factotum and nurse to Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the last
years of the great poet's life.
Aside from a memoir of Rossetti that sold well, Caine's early endeavors
in serious literature met with little success. However, when he
abandoned literary criticism for romantic fiction (in the
Walter Scott vein), he became
popular. "Shadow of a Crime", an 1885 novel featuring a love triangle,
was a best-seller. In 1887 he published a critical book about
Samuel Taylor Coleridge that
failed, but his return to fiction that same year with
The Deemster (1917), a romance set
in the Isle of Man, was a hit (a deemster is a judge on the Isle of
Man).
In all, he published 15 romantic novels over 40 years. Many had themes
influenced by his Christian socialist political sympathies. His
popularity was immense, and his 1897 novel "The Christian" (later made
into a film, The Christian (1915))
was the first novel to sell over a million copies in the United
Kingdom. In August 1902, when
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra
visited the Isle of Man, Caine was invited on board the royal yacht as
the royal couple toured the island (the queen was a fan). He was a
major celebrity in his own right, as well as a celebrated author.
During World War One he wrote propaganda articles urging the United
States to join the fight against Germany and her allies. He declined a
baronetcy in 1917 but accepted a knighthood, insisting he be styled Sir
Caine Hall. After the Great War his popularity began to decline, as his
style was considered old-fashioned. His return to fiction in 1921 with
"The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin", another romance set in the
Isle of Man, did not reach the level of popular success he was
accustomed to and was poorly received by critics. He was derided as
Victorian.
Many of his novels were made into movies during the silent era. "The
Manxman" was turned into
Der Mann von der Insel Man (1929), directed by
Alfred Hitchcock. The last film
made from a Hall Caine property was
The Bondman (1929), also released in
1929. Such was the decline of his reputation and popularity that no
sound film has ever been made from his works.
Caine is little remembered today, as his novels are considered badly
written; the characterizations are fuzzy and one plot is much like the
other. In 1931 G.K. Chesterton wrote his
literary epitaph: "Bad story writing is not a crime. Mr. Hall Caine
walks the streets openly, and cannot be put in prison for an
anticlimax."
He died on August 31, 1931, at the age of 78, the same year that
Chesterton dismissed him as a bad writer. He was the father of Sir
Derwent Hall Caine, 1st Baronet
(1891-1971), actor, publisher and Labour politician.
