He wrote 15 novels on subjects of adultery, divorce, domestic violence, illegitimacy, infanticide, religious bigotry and women's rights, became an international literary celebrity, and sold a total of ten million books.

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.

In 1895 Caine travelled in the United States and Canada, where he represented the Society of Authors conducting successful negotiations and obtaining important international copyright concessions from the Dominion Parliament.

[13] Continuing this tradition Grandmother Caine passed on her knowledge of local myths and legends to her grandson, telling him countless stories of fairies, witches, witch-doctors and the evil eye while they were sat by the fire.

[17] Through studying the works of the Lake School of Poets, and the best writers of the eighteenth century, Caine combined this knowledge with his own ideas of perfection, and went on to develop his level of eloquence to oratory.

[37] John Ruskin had started his Guild of St George and began expressing his ideas in his new monthly series, Fors Clavigera, written as a result of his feelings regarding the acute poverty and misery in Great Britain at the time.

[40][41] In April 1872, at the age of eighteen, Caine was back home in Liverpool where he set about applying his knowledge, gained working in the drawing office, into articles on architectural subjects, and subsequently published in The Builder and The Building News.

In 1879 Caine edited a booklet of the papers presented to the Notes and Queries Society by William Morris, Samuel Huggins and John J. Stevenson on the progress of public and professional thought on the treatment of ancient buildings which was described as "'well worth reading".

[41] A spate of correspondence relating to the publication ensued, Tumblety supplying Caine with names of notable people to be included in the pamphlet, along with money for printing and advertising.

[92] The strain of overworking was affecting Caine's health and in 1881, deciding to focus on his literary career, he left his job at Bromley & Son and went to St John's in the Vale, Cumbria.

[97] Caine negotiated the acquisition of Rossetti's largest painting Dante's Dream of the Death of Beatrice by Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery,[98][99] representing the painter at its installation in November 1881.

It began as a series of Liverpool lectures exposing unjustified reviews of poets Byron, Coleridge, Hunt, Keats, Shelley, Southey and Wordsworth that were written during their lifetimes[109] Returning to London after Rossetti's death, Caine moved into 18 Clement's Inn in July 1882, sharing rooms with his academic friend Eric Robertson, where they often hosted intellectual gatherings.

[110] They frequently had their evening meals delivered from a nearby coffee shop in Clare Market, which were brought by two young women; one was the 19-year-old Mary Chandler who was to eventually marry Caine.

[113] At the end of October 1883, with enough money to last about four months Caine, accompanied by Mary, went to the Isle of Wight where he rented Vectis Cottage, close to the cliffs and sea near Sandown.

[127] In order to make essential money and acquire exposure in America, disregarding the advice of his friends, Caine's short novel She's All The World To Me, was published in New York, in 1885 by Harper & Brothers.

[129] Set in the contrasting locations of the Vale of Newlands in the Lake District and Victorian London,[130] A Son of Hagar, Caine's third novel was written in 1885–86 and published in 1886 by Chatto and Windus.

[147] William Heinemann was so pleased with initial sales, eventually selling almost half a million copies, that he named his company's telegraphic address after the novel's main character, "Sunlocks".

Rumour that the play would be produced in London caused unrest in Britain's Muslim communities, threatened British rule in parts of India and strained the nation's relations with the Ottoman Empire.

It is the first novel in Britain to have sold over a million copies[224] The book was inspired by Rossetti's verses Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon The Pharisee, written for his painting, depicting a man trying to pluck back a woman about to enter the gates of heaven.

Mainly set in Victorian London, it is the story of Glory Quayle, a young woman living an independent life who becomes an actress, and John Storm, who enters the priesthood.

[239] The stage adaptation opened at His Majesty's Theatre, London on 2 October 1902, produced by actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, with incidental music by Italian composer Pietro Mascagni.

In April 1906 Collins and Caine had gone on a research trip where they spent a day with Leone Testa, the inspector-general of Sicily's sulphur mines and while visiting Naples they witnessed Mount Vesuvius erupt.

Crucially poet Wilfred Scawen Blunt exposed the facts in his pamphlet Atrocities of Justice Under British Rule in Egypt, provoking a public outcry in Britain.

Beerbohm Tree's plans to produce a dramatised version at His Majesty's Theatre, London, which he was to direct and star in, were abandoned following threats to lobby the Lord Chamberlain against granting a licence for the play, banning it.

[279] Father Bernard Vaughan, known for his sermons on The Sins of Society, denounced Caine's book saying "it showed startling ignorance of Roman Catholic doctrine and practice".

Parallels were drawn between the problem that Debs handled in real life and Caine's fictional story of Mary O'Neill, who marries unhappily and ends up on the street without shelter, with the whole world turned against her.

Caine was one of twenty-five leading authors Masterman invited to the Bureau's London headquarters, Wellington House on 2 September 1914 with the purpose of best promoting Britain's interests during the war.

[301] Caine urged America to join the war by writing articles, mainly for The New York Times and in 1915 he gave a series of lectures in the United States but these were not well received.

Vitagraph leased the Harris Theatre on West 42nd Street, for the purpose of exclusively showing their own films, opening with The Christian starring Earle Williams and Edith Storey.

Prime Minister David Lloyd George recruited Caine in 1917 to write the screenplay for the propaganda film Victory and Peace (1918), made in Britain and directed by Herbert Brenon.