THE MANXMAN
399,426 copies of English editions sold to date.
This is the novel most generally associated with Hall Caine's name. Two men, who love each other like David and Jonathan, are separated by the love each bears for the same woman, Kate Cregeen. The one is married to her, and by the other, in circumstances of tragic temptation, she has been betrayed. Out of this complication comes situations of searching pathos, culminating in a public confession and a great renunciation. The scene throughout is the Isle of Man, and the deeply injured husband and friend, Pete Quilliam, has become one of the best known figures in modern fiction and on the stage. Mr. Gladstone, who was a warm admirer of it, said, that though he disapproved of divorce, he recognised the integrity of the author's aim. Nearly 400,000 of the English edition has been sold already. It is a love story of great intensity.
T. P. O'Connor says: "This is a very fine and great story—one of the finest and greatest of our time."
THE BONDMAN
468,327 copies of English editions sold to date.
This story is intended to show the futility of the spirit of revenge—that vengeance belongs to God only. Two sons (born in different countries) of the same father by different mothers set out to search for each other to avenge the wrongs they have suffered through their parents. When they meet it is as fellow-prisoners chained together in a penal settlement, where their identity is unknown (their names being hidden by numbers) and they become the most passionately devoted friends. Finally one of the half brothers gives his life for the life of the man he came to kill, and restores him to the woman they have both loved. The scene is chiefly Iceland, and the period the recent past. "THE BONDMAN" is one of Hall Caine's most moving love stories. In some foreign countries, particularly Scandinavia, it is thought to be his best.
The Scotsman says: "Hall Caine has, in this work, placed himself beyond the front rank of the novelists of the day."
THE SCAPEGOAT
This is the story of a young and lovely girl, Naomi, who, born deaf, dumb, and blind, recovers her senses one by one, in circumstances of startling excitement in the life of her father, thus having the beauty of the world revealed to her in sight, sound and speech, after her intelligence has matured. Around this central theme a dramatic narrative gathers of life in Morocco, under the present half-civilised regime. The Times says "the 'SCAPEGOAT' is the best of Hall Caine's novels," and that opinion is shared by many good judges. It has had a warm reception in foreign countries, particularly in Germany, where it has been said that the central character bears an affinity to Goethe's immortal Mignon.