Madame Midas: Text Classics

Fergus Hume was born in England in 1859. His family soon immigrated to New Zealand, where Hume qualified as a lawyer. He was admitted to the bar in 1885 and moved to Melbourne in the same year. Desperate to become a playwright but having no success, Hume decided to write a murder novel instead. When he couldn't find a publisher for The Mystery of a Hansom Cab he published it himself. It was a sensation and sold over twenty thousand copies in Melbourne. With a hit on his hands, Hume sold his copyright to the Hansom Cab Publishing Company in London for fifty pounds. The book was a phenomenal success but Hume never saw another penny from his bestseller. It may have influenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes adventure. Hume moved back to England in 1888 after the publication of his second novel, Madame Midas. He embarked on a career that produced over 130 novels. He never became a famous playwright but he did co-write the theatrical adaptation of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, which played in London for five hundred nights. The story was also filmed three times in the silent era. Fergus Hume died in 1932.

Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster, podcaster and public commentator who has worked in politics, academia and the media. Clare is currently Professor of History and Professor of Public Engagement at La Trobe University. She is the author of five works of history, including the best-selling The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (winner of the 2014 Stella Prize) and You Daughters of Freedom. Her latest book, and the final instalment in her Democracy Trilogy, is the highly acclaimed Ṉäku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions which won the ,Australian Political Book of the Year, Queensland Literary Award for Non-Fiction and NT History Book Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Victorian Premiers Literary Awards, Age Book of the Year Awards and ABIA Awards, and was longlisted for a Walkley Award and the NIB Literary Award. Clare has written and presented history documentaries for ABC TV and is Associate Producer of the feature film One Mind One Heart, written/directed by Larissa Behrendt, which won the NSW Digital History Award. She also hosts the ABC Radio National history podcast, Shooting the Past, co-hosts the La Trobe University podcast Archive Fever (with Yves Rees) and is Executive Producer of Hey History! the first Australian history podcast designed for use in the classroom. In 2020, Clare was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours list for ‘services to literature and to historical research’. Clare is Chair of the National Museum of Australia Council and past Board Director of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.