page_title: The Woman Thou Gavest Me (novel)
section_title: Publication and reception
hierarchical_section_title: The Woman Thou Gavest Me (novel) / Publication and reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Mary O'Neill's character on Hall Caine's gravestone
context_page_description: The Woman Thou Gavest Me is a best-selling 1913 British novel by Hall Caine. The book is a fictional first-personal account of a Catholic woman's struggle after marrying the wrong man. It was one of Caine's most contentious books, causing outrage on its release for its handling of adultery, illegitimacy and divorce. It was the seventh-best-selling novel of 1913 and was made into a film in 1919.
context_section_description: Hall Caine first conceived of the idea for The Woman Thou Gavest Me in 1890 when his two sons visited in him in Rome during his time working on The Eternal City. The idea for the novel gestated during his work on two further novels before The Woman Thou Gavest Me began its serial release in Hearst's Magazine in October 1912 (running for a period alongside the serial of Winston Churchill's The Inside of the Cup). The novel was complete and released in book form in July 1913.
  Even considering the great outcry that his previous novels received for their "coarseness" and "immorality", The Woman Thou Gavest Me brought about 'the biggest furore of any of his novels [...] a storm of criticism and abuse broke out over Caine's head when the book came out.' Many circulating libraries refused to stock the book. Understandably most virulent in their derision of the book were Catholics, who found the book to be offensive in many ways, not least in being an apparent attempt to condone adultery and illegitimacy.
  The novel was received poorly by the critics. The Nation called it an 'absurd book'; 'the sort of sensational mediocrity which is bound to appeal to the vulgar.' The Outlook spoke of how in the novel 'melodramatic situations and turgid rhetoric are the rule'; 'the mixture of sentiment, high-flown language, and unnecessarily bold discussion of the marriage relation makes reading disagreeable and tedious.' However, some positive reviews were received, such as in The Literary Digest, whose review began:
  For intensity of emotion, detailed analysis of psychological conditions, and passionate human experiences, the reader will find all that can be desired from the pen of Hall Caine. Each page is throbbing with emotion, usually in the superlative degree.
  However, despite the predominantly negative critical reception, and in part thanks to the furore surrounding the book, The Woman Thou Gavest Me became the seventh best-selling novel of 1913, selling over half a million copies before the end of the year. This was a reflection of the popular success that Caine continued to receive in defiance of his critical reception at this time. Most marked were the positive personal reactions he received from female readers of the novel, apparently leading to the fact that even 'years later he was still getting letters from women asking how he knew so exactly how they felt.'. One such woman wrote to Caine telling him that:
  "I cannot express my thoughts but you - how beautiful to be so gifted, with such a mind and the power to express. I cannot tell you what the book was to me."
  The novel was to remain in print until Caine's death in 1931, when it was in its 29th English edition and had been translated nine times. The book was considered of such importance to Hall Caine's life work that the character of Mary O’Neill was one of the characters from his novels chosen to be carved onto his gravestone by Archibald Knox. For this character, Knox apparently modelled Mary's likeness on a photograph of Hall Caine's own wife, Mary Hall Caine.
caption: The depiction of Mary O'Neill by Archibald Knox on Hall Caine's gravestone
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