THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB (Thriller Classic) (ePub)

Fergus Hume, born Fergusson Wright Hume on July 8, 1859, in England, moved to New Zealand as a child with his family before settling in Melbourne, Australia, where he would become one of the pioneers of detective fiction. Hume was initially an aspiring playwright but turned his attention to the literary domain after his plays garnered little success. He chanced upon the idea of writing mystery novels after realizing the popularity of crime fiction among Melbourne's reading public. In an endeavor that would define his career, Hume self-published his first novel, 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' in 1886, which became a phenomenal success, selling over 300,000 copies in Australia and an estimated million copies worldwide, thus firmly establishing his reputation as a writer. Although he went on to write over 130 novels, none of his subsequent works achieved the fame and acclaim of his debut. Hume's literary style was marked by his innovative use of the mystery genre, incorporating intricate plots, red herrings, and the bustling cityscapes of colonial Australia as a backdrop. His work prefigured, and arguably influenced, the writings of the later and more renowned mystery authors like Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. Despite the overshadowing by his contemporaries in the years that followed, Fergus Hume's contributions to the detective novel have secured him a place in the annals of classic crime fiction literature.