Hall Caine

The Prodigal Son Hall Caine

The Prodigal Son is a best-selling novel by Hall Caine, published in November 1904 by Heinemann and translated into thirteen languages. It is set in a sheep-rearing community in rural Iceland, with scenes in London and the French Riviera. At the same time Caine adapted the novel into a play. The copyright performance was held at the Grand Theatre, Douglas, Isle of Man. American and British productions opened days apart in 1905, at the National Theatre in Washington, D. C. on 28 August, the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York City on 4 September and at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London on 7 September, with George Alexander playing Oscar and Caine's sister Lilian playing Thora. After a long run at Drury Lane it was revived in 1907. In The Prodigal Son Magnus learns on his wedding day that his bride, Thora, is in love with his brother Oscar, a composer. She marries Oscar after Magnus releases her from the engagement. When Thora dies, a distraught Oscar places the only copies of his compositions in her coffin. Later he has her grave opened and his music retrieved. It was filmed in 1923. A. E. Coleby's 18,454 feet, nineteen reel film The Prodigal Son became the longest commercially made British film. Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine CH KBE (14 May 1853 - 31 August 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British novelist, dramatist, short story writer, poet and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Caine's popularity during his lifetime was unprecedented. Writing fifteen novels on subjects of adultery, divorce, domestic violence, illegitimacy, infanticide, religious bigotry and women's rights he became an international literary celebrity, selling ten million books. Caine was the most highly paid novelist of his day. The Eternal City is the first novel to sell over a million copies worldwide. In addition to his books, Caine is the author of more than a dozen plays and was one of the most commercially successful dramatists of his time; many were West End and Broadway productions. Caine adapted seven of his novels for the stage. He collaborated with leading actors and managers, including Wilson Barrett, Viola Allen, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Louis Napoleon Parker, Mrs Patrick Campbell, George Alexander, and Arthur Collins. Most of Caine's novels were adapted into silent black and white films. A. E. Coleby's 1923 18,454 feet, nineteen-reel film The Prodigal Son became the longest commercially made British film. Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film The Manxman, is Hitchcock's last silent film. Born in Runcorn to a Manx father and Cumbrian mother, Caine was raised in Liverpool. After spending four years in school, Caine was trained as an architectural draughtsman. While growing up he spent childhood holidays with relatives in the Isle of Man. At seventeen he spent a year there as schoolmaster in Maughold. Afterwards he returned to Liverpool and began a career in journalism, becoming a leader-writer on the Liverpool Mercury. As a lecturer and theatre critic he developed a circle of eminent literary friends that he was influenced by. Caine moved to London at Dante Gabriel Rossetti's suggestion and lived with the poet, acting as secretary and companion during the last years of Rossetti's life. Following the publication of his Recollections of Rossetti in 1882, Caine began his career as a writer spanning four decades. Caine established his residency in the Isle of Man in 1895, where he sat from 1901 to 1908 in the Manx House of Keys, the lower house of its legislature. Caine was elected President of the Manx National Reform League in 1903 and chair of the Keys' Committee that prepared the 1907 petition for constitutional reform. In 1929 Caine was granted the Freedom of the Borough of Douglas, Isle of Man.