Fergus Hume 
A Coin of Edward Vii 

The Morley family–a husband, his wife and her three children from a former marriage, one young ward, and a governess. Add in Giles Ware, a young man who was engaged by a family agreement to the young ward, and the fact that he’s in love with the governess, and you have the start of a mystery. When the young ward is found dead and the governess has disappeared with a mysterious man, Mr. Ware and a detective, Mr. Steel, must search for the governess and unravel the mystery…

About the author

Finding that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were then very popular in Melbourne, Hume obtained and read a set of them and determined to write a novel of the same kind. The result was The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne, with descriptions of poor urban life based on his knowledge of Little Bourke Street. It was self-published in 1886 and became a great success. Because he sold the British and American rights for 50 pounds, however, he reaped little of the potential financial benefit. It became the best-selling mystery novel of the Victorian era; in 1990 John Sutherland called it the ‘most sensationally popular crime and detective novel of the century’. This novel inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle remarked, ‘Hansom Cab was a slight tale, mostly sold by ‘puffing’.’

After the success of his first novel and the publication of another, Professor Brankel’s Secret (c.1886), Hume returned to England in 1888. He resided in London for a few years and then moved to the Essex countryside where he lived in Thundersley for 30 years. Eventually he produced more than 100 novels and short stories.