Fergus Hume - Collected Works of Fergus Hume

The Collected Works of

FERGUS HUME

(1859-1932)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2018

Version 1

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The Collected Works of

FERGUS HUME

By Delphi Classics, 2018

Collected Works of Fergus Hume

First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2018.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 100 8

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Powick Old Bridge, a scenic spot in Powick, Worcestershire, where Fergusson Wright Hume was born in 1859

Dunedin, New Zealand, where Hume and his family moved when the author was three years old

Considered one of the most influential, as well as most successful, examples of the genre, this mystery novel was first published in Australia in 1886. Set in Melbourne, the story focuses on the investigation of a homicide involving a body discovered in a hansom cab. Also focusing on the social class divide in the city, the novel was successful in Australia, selling 100,000 copies in the first two print runs. It was then published in Britain and the United States and went on to sell over 500,000 copies worldwide. It also inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write his first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet (1887).

Hume was working as a solicitors clerk in Melbourne during the 1880s, but had ambitions of becoming a writer. Having had little success, he learned from a local bookseller that the detective stories of Emile Gaboriau were by far the bestselling fictional works of the day. He bought all of Gaboriaus books, making a close study of the crime genre, before turning his attention to producing an example of his own. Initially the novel was turned down emphatically by every publisher to which it was submitted according to Hume, this was because publishers did not believe that a work by a colonial author would sell. Eventually Hume published the novel privately, and then sold the publishing rights for 50. The first, privately published edition is now a priceless collectors item indeed, the copy owned by the State Library of New South Wales is the only one known to exist.

When the book became a massive bestseller, Hume profited from a lucrative series of stage adaptations, having retained the dramatic rights to the novel. A revised edition of the novel appeared in 1898, with a preface by Hume. Although Hume went on to write more than a 130 books, enjoying great popular success, his first novel remains the one for which he is best known not only as a classic of late-Victorian crime fiction, but also as the first Australian bestseller. In particular, its vivid portrait of Melbourne in the 1880s and its (then highly original) blend of crime puzzle with the intrigue of the fashionable Victorian sensation novel have been noted by critics.

Cover of the first British edition of 1888

CONTENTS

The novel has been adapted for the screen a number of times, most recently the ABC television adaptation of 2012

I N ITS ORIGINAL form, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab has reached the sale of 375,000 copies in this country, and some few editions in the United States of America. Notwithstanding this, the present publishers have the best of reasons for believing, that there are thousands of persons whom the book has never reached. The causes of this have doubtless been many, but chief among them was the form of the publication itself. It is for this section of the public chiefly that the present edition is issued. In placing it before my new readers, I have been asked by the publishers thoroughly to revise the work, and, at the same time, to set at rest the many conflicting reports concerning it and myself, which have been current since its initial issue. The first of these requests I have complied with, and the many typographic, and other errors, which disfigured the first edition, have, I think I can safely say, now disappeared. The second request I am about to fulfil; but, in order to do so, I must ask my readers to go back with me to the beginning of all things, so far as this special book is concerned.