[Handwritten title]: Original Manuscript of "Hall Caine - The Man and The Novelist" by C. Fred Kenyon with extensive Autograph Corrections & Revisions by the subject, Hall Caine. Inserted, are also six autograph letters, etc. by Hall Caine containing prefatory matter and suggestions for the "Life" 1901

1901. Hardcover. Fine. Manuscript. Large octavo. Approximately 40 unnumbered pages consisting of calligraphic title page, preface, and transcriptions of the Hall Caine Autograph Letters which are mounted to reveal both sides of the letters and include one envelope; followed by the manuscript of the biography consisting of 244 leaves handwritten on rectos only, with corrections and revisions in the hands of both Kenyon and Hall Caine. Beautifully bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe in full blue morocco elaborated stamped in gilt and red, in custom cloth clamshell case. Fine; the case shows modest wear.

The book also displays a later gift inscription: "To my dear and beloved friend David G. Joyce given this day Sunday May 21, 1916. Harry Dayton Sickles." A fascinating, if problematic inscription. Joyce was a noted Chicago book collector. Sickles was a horse of a different color: a forger who was in league with Eugene Fields, II. Indeed it is now widely thought that it was Sickles who did most of the actual forgery for which Fields, the son of the noted poet, was notorious.

However, it seems unlikely that Sickles would go to the laborious trouble of forging a complete 244 page and little known biography, or even the Hall Caine letters, most of which are on either Caine's own stationary (Greeba Castle on the Isle of Man), or on that of his publisher (William Heinemann, 21, Bedford Street). It seems much more likely that Sickles was gifting the beautifully bound minor manuscript on a collector who might be more likely to pursue bigger game. Some searching reveals that Joyce seemed to be more interested in a book's binding than its contents - an auction disbursement in 1922 of at least some of his library seemed almost devoted exclusively to sumptuous modern English bindings, of which this would qualify.

Caine was a very popular Manx novelist of the period. A beautifully bound manuscript with interesting provenance and related correspondence.