Early in his career, Hall Caine was acting as literary secretary to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and it was he who suggested that he write a novel set on the Isle of Man.

On 3 October 1886 Caine wrote to the Manx poet: I remember that your brother Hugh did something to dissuade me from tackling Manxland in any sort of work.

In contrast to their father, the Deemster's children, Ewan and Mona, grow up to become a conscientious and diligent priest and a good, caring woman.

In contrast, without a strong hand to admonish him, the Bishop's son, Dan, grows up to become "thoughtless, brave, stubborn",[8] likeable but unreliable.

Alone let him live, alone let him die, and among the beasts of the field let him hide his unburied bones.”[10] Dan travels to the very south of the island, where he takes up a solitary life of hunting, fishing and farming.

He progresses through stages of bitterness and loneliness, trying and failing to flee from the sentence through activity and even an attempt to emigrate to Ireland.

Dan becomes increasingly close to nature; and to retain his humanity he takes up speaking again, in the only way that would not endanger his sanity: by repeating the one prayer he remembers, at sunrise and sunset each day on the hill overlooking the village of Cregneash.

Shortly after a period of heavy rain followed by strong sun, there are signs of distress on the island: fishing boats do not put out to sea, carts do not go to market, people are ascending to the mountains.

With the sickness defeated, Dan returns to his hut near Cregneash without having seen Mona, preferring solitude to the new-found adulation of the Manx people.

[5] There were to be more than 50 editions of the book in English, as well as translations into French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Russian, Spanish, Finnish and Czech.

[3] Upon Caine's first visit to America in 1895, the American press commented on the novel that "By its setting in the Isle of Man it opened up a new domain in literature as surely as Scott, Dickens and Thackeray had in their day.

[...] I have but to lift the alabaster box of precious ointment, and up leaps the genuine Manx perfume, so that the house is filled with the savour thereof.

[...] 'The Deemster' will live in the literature of the English nation, their own descendants abashed and wondering, and asking what their fathers meant by an indifference so stupid and so unaccountable.

[4] Caine's fellow contemporary novelist, George Gissing read the novel in February 1888 and called it "better than I anticipated...some really strong romantic writing in it...feeble characterization".

[16] In August 1902 King Edward VII made an unannounced visit to the Isle of Man to have Hall Caine show him the locations of the novel, such as Bishopscourt.

[3] This is shown in a letter written to Caine by Wilkie Collins on 15 March 1888: For a long time past, I have read nothing in contemporary fiction that approaches what you have done here.

Next time, I want more humour, [...] More breaks of sunshine in your splendid cloudy sky will be a truer picture of nature-and will certainly enlarge the number of your admiring readers.

The play was entitled Ben-my-Chree (“Girl of my heart" in Manx), the name of Dan's boat in the novel, and it was Caine's first foray into writing for the stage.

It opened at the Princess's Theatre on Oxford Street, London, on 17 May 1888, and despite initially dubious reviews it proved to be a great success.

Mona dies of shock, the Governor is handed over to the police for laying false evidence and Dan throws himself across his sweetheart's body while waiting for the hangman.

[19] After falling out with Barrett, eventually leading to legal action, Caine came to rewrite another version of the novel for the stage, now entitled, The Bishop's Son.

It was taken on tour in 1910, including a performance in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, on 15 August, at which Caine delivered a rapturously-received pre-performance speech.

[21] The film was released in England in March 1918, when Hall Caine organised "a stellar first night audience" for the screening in aid of war charities.