The Bondman : A new Saga – Public Domain

L'intrigue tourne autour de deux demi-frères, jurés de se venger.

The Bondman is an 1890 best-selling novel by Hall Caine set in the Isle of Man and Iceland. It was the first novel to be released by the newly established Heinemann publishing company. It was a phenomenal success and was later adapted into a successful play and two silent films. The plot revolves around two half brothers, the one, Jason, sworn to avenge the wrongs done by their father; the other, Michael, sworn to rectify these wrongs. They both fall in love with the same woman and their travels take from between the Isle of Man and Iceland, crossing personal upheavals, political revolutions and natural disasters. The novel ends with one half-brother giving his life so that the other may escape to a life with the one he loves. PLOT/ An Icelandic fisherman, Stephen Orry, bears two sons, one to the governor's daughter in Reykjavík, another to the lowest of women on the Isle of Man. The Iceland-born son, Jason "the Red", is brought up in poverty and is left with his mother's dying wish for him to seek vengeance on his father who had brought them to that position. The Manx-born son, Michael "Sunlocks", is brought up by the Deputy Governor of the Isle of Man, alongside his daughter, Greeba, as Stephen could not support him or keep him from bad influences. When Michael is 19, Stephen returns and sends him to Iceland to make good his wrong to his wife there. As Michael sets sail from the Isle of Man, Jason arrives on a boat from Iceland. After surviving shipwreck in Ramsey bay, Jason is called upon to save Stephen Orry from his own boating accident off Maughold Head. However, Stephen dies of his injuries, but not before Jason comes to recognise him as his father and achieves a reconciliation. ..........Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine CH KBE (14 May 1853 – 31 August 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British novelist, dramatist, short story writer, poet and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Caine's popularity during his lifetime was unprecedented. Writing fifteen novels on subjects of adultery, divorce, domestic violence, illegitimacy, infanticide, religious bigotry and women's rights he became an international literary celebrity, selling ten million books. Caine was the most highly paid novelist of his day.