The Eternal City
Caine and his wife, Mary, spent four winters in Rome, renting a house, 18 Trinità de' Monti, near the Spanish Steps. On their visit between January and April 1901 Caine finished "The Eternal City", his greatest commercial success. It is Caine's only novel to be first conceived as a play. The story begins in Rome in 1900 at the fictional Pope Pius X's jubilee celebrations, at the height of the dispute between the Vatican and the Italian state on the temporal power of the Church. David Rossi, a socialist and republican is accused of conspiring to assassinate the Italian king. He opposes Baron Bonelli, a corrupt prime minister. Bonelli tries to prevent the culmination of the love story between his mistress Donna Roma Volonna and Rossi. "The Eternal City" was serialised in Britain in 1901 in The Lady's Magazine and in the United States in Collier's Weekly, between February and August 1901. Immediately afterwards it was published in book form by Heinemann, with an initial print run of 100,000, running to twenty-six editions, selling more than a million copies in English alone and translated into thirteen languages. 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. A week after the play opened in London, Caine republished the novel, cutting all the political parts and following the story of the play making it into a 'theatre edition'. The American production of "The Eternal City" premiered on 17 November, at the Victoria Theatre, New York City, with Viola Allen as Roma, Frederic De Belleville as Bonelli, and Edward J. Morgan as Rossi. Caine supervised rehearsals. Towards the end of 1903 six companies were performing "The Eternal City", in England, USA, Australia and South Africa.