Hall Caine (1835-1931) was a highly successful writer of sensational
romances whose work is now generally forgotten and who is remembered,
if at all, largely for his reminiscences of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
There are many reasons for writing and reading biographies of
‘minor’ writers, even those which do not challenge that ‘minor
status’. Such biographies offer relief from the recurrent ‘lives
of the saints’ approaches to the same major writers which fail,
predictably, to provide biographical and historical explanations
for literary excellence. Minor writers may offer approaches to
literary and social milieux whose representation tends to be skewed
by a focus on more widely known figures. Indeed, biographies of
writers who have been but are no longer very popular may tell
us more about the establishment of literary reputation than examinations
of those figures who have remained in the pantheon or who have
been reinserted into it, Vivian Allen’s book prompts some questions
about reputation and literary history, but unfortunately does
little to answer them.
Allen’s extensive research uncovers some entertaining and promisingly
diverse material. Dr. Tumblety (at one time principal suspect
in the Ripper murders), the remnants of Rossetti’s circle, George
Bernard Shaw, Lord Northcliffe, Bram Stoker (who dedicated Dracula
to Caine) and Alfred Hitchcock (whose last silent film was a version
of Caine’s The Manxman) all make appearances. Caine made
much of his origins in the Isle of Man, and his novels rely heavily
on offering their readers exotic or peripheral settings, whether
in Man, Egypt or Iceland. His novels also return frequently to
the theme of illegitimacy, and in his own life the illegitimacy
of his own son refused to be buried, as did that of his granddaughter.
Allen notes these points but seems more consistently concerned
than Caine himself to make the novelist conform, to make him ordinary.
The complications of Caine, who had supported the raising of the
age of consent to 16 but married a girl whom he was initially
accused of ‘ruining’ when she was 13, his probable homosexuality,
excessive self-advertisement, active political life and sartorial
eccentricity are all noted only to be played down. The difference
and pastness of the past, political conflict, issues concerning
social diversity and mobility are lost in a generalising and normalising
style, which relies far too heavily on what people ‘must have’
felt or thought according to some unspoken assumption of common
understanding.
Even Caine’s association with Rossetti, which Allen shows to have
been of enormous personal importance to Caine himself, becomes
a matter of tedious domestic detail and diary reading. Allen states
that ‘He [Rossetti] told Caine a great deal in confidence about
his marriage, his mistresses and his impotence but one cannot
imagine he admitted to being mad.’ Sadly, we seem to be discouraged
from imagining or inquiring at all. Some relations between the
life and the work are suggested, but never really examined. Caine
fictionalised not only events from his own experience, but also
others like Rossetti’s famous exhumation of his own wife’s body
to retrieve a manuscript. (Rossetti’s family were unimpressed
by Caine’s resurrection of this episode). But Caine’s persistent
digging up of his own life for the purposes of fiction is not
subjected to any real scrutiny.
Allen does not provide enough quotations from original sources
(there are no notes), and the few direct quotations are too brief.
A reference to Michael Collins does not inspire confidence, since
it reverses the political position which led to his death. In
general, the reader is dissuaded from exercising any active interest
at all. Which is a pity, because many of the details of Caine’s
life which Allen relates offer great opportunities for re-examining
literary respectability and ephemerality, familiarity and exoticism,
popularity and acceptability. Allen raise subjects which promise
to fascinate, but then tells us in excessive detail about a hot
water bottle or about railway carriages instead. The conclusion
merely reiterates the question ‘Why was Hall Caine so popular?’,
and this mystery, which perplexed some contemporaries as well,
is simply left as a strange fact to be accepted like Caine’s bizarre,
haunting gaze as displayed in many of the portraits reproduced
here.
Reviewed by Ben Hawes
