Deemster, Signed (1 results)

Condition: GOOD. Early US edition. An early printing of this novel originally published in 1887 in three volumes by Chatto & Windus, the second to be set on the Isle of Man and his first great success, considered the first of the Manx novels. Set in the 18th century, where the title of Deemster is given to the Island's judges, the plot includes the story of a fatal fight, with the body being taken out to sea only to float back to land the next day, a scene which he took from his earlier novella 'She's All the World to Me.' It had more than fifty English editions and was translated into every major European language. Caine also adapted it into a stage version, which opened in 1888 and became a staple of Barrett's provincial and international tours (this edition is dedicated to Wilson Barrett) In 1917, it was the basis of a US film starring his son Derwent Hall Caine and Marian Swayne, the first special feature film made by the Arrow Film Corporation. Although Cain was the wealthiest and the most popular and best-selling of Victorian novelists, and praised by many of his contemporaries - T. E. Brown referred to the book as 'little short of a masterpiece'; his friend Bram Stoker wrote an introduction to a later edition, and in 1902 King Edward VII made an unannounced visit to the Isle of Man to have Hall Caine show him the locations of the novel - later critics dismissed his work as melodramatic and humorless. An inexpensively produced and poorly printed edition, but boldly INSCRIBED on the verso of the frontispiece and dated 1893 Douglas, Isle of Man. 361 pp. Good overall in terra cotta cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, some biopredation to the cloth, missing the front endpaper, but a sturdy and straight copy.