A biobibliographical examination of “the lesser known Caine”

“…la réduction du passé à un récit linéaire m’est intolérable.”
— H. Lefebvre, Le temps des méprises, 1975, p. 138

“Le récit devrait se dérouler sur plus de plans simultanés qu’une grande fugue de Bach.”
id., p. 16

§ 0 | In lieu of a preface — I would like to reproduce the penultimate piece of “witty letterpress,” along with its facing illustration, from William Caine’s posthumous Smoke Rings […]

§ 1 | The lesser known Caine — The Author of “Trixie” is the eleventh item in a list of fifteen books in the fourth chapter of the first novel Vladimir Nabokov composed originally in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. […]

§ 2 | Sir William Keyne came bustling forward — Italo Calvino defines the “principal virtue of every true «humorist»” as “involving oneself in one’s own irony.” Caine, by Calvino’s definition, was doubly virtuous. […]

§ 3 | A shimmer of errors — According to a digital image of a tombstone available on the internet, William Caine was born August 28, 1873, and died September 5, 1925. Yet a brief report published in the Western Mail on Friday, September 4, 1925 […]

§ 4 | The invisible center of the plot — The April 1941 issue of Sur contains a fictional review/obituary by Jorge Luis Borges, “Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain.” The last name of Borges’s fictitious author reads easily enough as an amalgam of Caine and Quilliam […]

§ 5 | Tall, rosy-haired and very good-looking — In late May 1913, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas hosted at their Parisian home, 27 rue de Fleurus, an Anglo-American couple they had first encountered a few months earlier […]

§ 6 | Virtuous resolves, vicious results — Published October 16, 1914, in the US, and November 3 in the UK, it’s possible that Gordon Caine’s “well known humorous english writer” of a husband was still working on the manuscript of But She Meant Well […]

§ 7 | The spark her husband uses to write with — On May 18, 1914, Mabel Dodge wrote from the Hotel Chelsea, Atlantic City, to Gertrude Stein […]

§ 8 | A real merit which belongs to another — In a PS to the dedication of Old Enough to Know Better, Caine explains that he dedicated his ninth novel “to the dearest of Emilys” […]

§ 9 | Dangerous vagrancies, fortunate mischances — Reviewing Vernon Rendall’s The London Nights of Belsize for The Evening News in June, 1917, Arthur Machen suggested […]

§ 10 | Talks and moves gracefully — Edith Gordon Walker’s final stint upon the boards of the English stage, in the months just before and after she became the wife of the author of The Author of “Trixie”, quite fittingly […]

§ 11 | A neat turn for fanciful lyrics — Meanwhile — that is, one month before Edith Gordon Walker set foot on the quay of Liverpool — the Chelsea Town Hall, London, hosted the amateur production of a comic opera […]

§ 12 | Dearest and most helpful — [Hoffman's Chance; Canoodle-oodle-oo; A Perfect Lyric] […]

§ 13 | One woman — The June 9, 1919, edition of The Daily News (London) ran a short review of Caine’s The Wife Who Came Alive [Caine’s more ponderous books: Drones; “One Woman” is name of painter’s show in this book; allusion to Caine’s dedication of An Angler at Large; Three’s a Crowd] […]

§ 14 | The Conscience Quartet — Three years and three months before Mr. and Mrs. William Caine debarked from the Lusitania at Pier 54 [Caine’s “Conscience” novels: Boom!, A Prisoner in Spain, The Revolt at Roskelly’s, The Devil in Solution] […]

§ 15 | Untrained and extravagant — Caine’s first four books: Pilkington, The Confectioners, The Pursuit of the President, The Victim and the Votery […]

§ 16 | Unreliable narrators — Caine’s books in 1º : The Irresistible Intruder, Bildad the Quill-Driver, The Strangeness of Noel Carton […]

§ 17 | The author of The Author of “Trixie” — […]

§ 18 | A preciosity of trouts — The Preface which Guy C. Pollock wrote for Caine’s posthumous collection Fish, Fishing & Fishermen […]

§ 3-bis | [Incorporate into § 17 The Author of The Author of Trixie? or § 18 A preciosity of trouts?] A real intelligible immortality — Readers of the Saturday, October 16, 1926, edition of The Advertiser of Adelaide, South Australia […]

Abbreviations — of Caine’s book titles as used in citations, in alphabetical order.

Appendix (I) — Caine’s Obituaries

Bibliography (I) — Books by William Caine

Bibliography (II) — Stories and articles by William Caine

Bibliography (III) — Verse, lyrics and libretti by William Caine

Bibliography (IV) — Other authors