The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is a novel written by Fergus Hume, first published in 1886. It is considered to be one of the first great mystery novels and one of the most successful detective novels of the Victorian era. The story is set in Melbourne, Australia, and revolves around the murder of a wealthy man named Oliver Whyte, who is found dead in the back of a hansom cab. The investigation into his death is led by Detective Inspector Frederick Waters and his assistant, Detective Sergeant George Parrish.As the investigation unfolds, a number of suspects are identified, including Whyte's fiancée, his business partner, and a mysterious woman who was seen with him on the night of his murder. The detectives must navigate through a web of lies and deceit to uncover the truth behind Whyte's death.The novel was an instant success and became a bestseller in Australia and the United Kingdom. It has been adapted into several stage plays and films, including a silent film version made in 1911 and a 2012 TV movie adaptation."The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" is credited with helping to popularize the mystery genre and inspiring future writers, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who would go on to create his iconic detective character, Sherlock Holmes.Fergusson Wright Hume (1859-1932) was a British novelist who spent most of his life in New Zealand and Australia. He is best known for his novel "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," which is considered to be one of the first great mystery novels and a pioneering work in the detective fiction genre.

The young minister and the elderly skipper discussed the subject of marriage in a shabby antique room of small size, which had the appearance of having been used to more aristocratic cornpany. The ’dark-oak panelled walls, the grotesquely-carved Ceiling-beams, the Dutch-tiled fire-place, with its ungainly brass dogs, and the deep slanting embrasure of the lozenge-paned casement, suggested Georgian beaux and belles dancing buckram minutes, or at least hard-riding country squires plotting Jacobite restoration. But these happenings were in the long-ago, but this stately Essex manor-house had declined woefully from its high estate, and now sheltered a rough and ready mariner, who camped, rather than dwelt, under its roof.

The Solitary Farm by Fergus Hume. The Solitary Farm by Fergus Hume is a mystery taking place in the country. This is one of the world's great murder mysteries. Fergus Hume was born in England, the second son of James Hume. When he was three the family emigrated to Dunedin, New Zealand, where he was educated at Otago Boys' High School and studied law at the University of Otago. He was admitted to the New Zealand bar in 1885. Shortly after graduation Hume relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where he obtained a job as a barristers' clerk. He began writing plays, but found it impossible to persuade the managers of Melbourne theatres to accept or even to read them. 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.

The Clock Struck One by Fergus Hume. Julian Edermont lives at the Red House with his ward, Dora Carew and his old friend, Lambert Joad. But things are amiss at the House. First, Edermont suffers a panic attack at church, during the section of the Litany that prays for deliverance from murder and sudden death. Then, he has a terrible argument with Dora's fiancee, Dr. Allen Scott. When Edermont is found beaten to death in his study, his strange behaviour becomes the key to unlocking a terrible crime - and Dora is forced to turn detective...

A young Englishman witnesses a murder committed in a deserted house, a murder of such a nature that presents the murderer as a supernatural being. Was the murder really the work of some supernatural forces or were there some earthly explanation?

THE MAN WITH A SECRET "With anxious dread have I avoided thee, Thou haunting evil of my early days, Yet by some trick of Fate we meet again; I pray thee, sir, let me go far away. And place the roaring seas between us twain, There is but sorrow in our comradeship." It was the high road to the village of Garsworth, wide, deeply rutted, and somewhat grass-grown, with a tall hedge of yellow-blossomed gorse on the one side, and on the other a ragged, broken fence, over which leaned a man absorbed in meditation, his eyes fixed upon the setting sun. The fence, rotten and moss-tufted, ran along the edge of a little hill, the slope of which had been lately reaped, and was now covered with bristly yellow stubble, variegated by bare-looking patches of brownish earth. At the bottom of the hill flowed the narrow river Gar, with its sluggish waters rolling lazily along between the low mud banks, bordered by rows of pollard willows and lush rank grasses which hid the burrows of the water-rats. Beyond, towards the distant hills, stretched the damp, melancholy fen-lands, with their long lines of slimy ditches, still pools of black water, and scattered clumps of stunted trees. Still further away appeared a scanty fringe of forest, above which could be seen the square, grey tower of a church, and over all glared an angry red sky barred with thin lines of heavy clouds, looming intensely black against the accentuating crimson light behind. An evil-looking scene it was, for over the brooding loneliness and desolation of the fen-lands flared the fierce scarlet of the sunset, turning the slender line of the river and the sombre pools of water to the tint of blood, as though they had been smitten with the Egyptian plague. FERGUS HUME Fergusson Wright Hume (8 July 1859 – 12 July 1932), known as Fergus Hume, was a prolific English novelist.

A fortune hunter expected home from a diamond mining expedition to South Africa turns up murdered, with his false hand missing. Suspects abound, including the fiancé of the dead man’s daughter. But why was the adventurer murdered? And why did the killer steal his victim’s wooden hand? This classic murder mystery from the prolific Fergus Hume (The Mystery of a Hansom Cab) moves from the heart of the English countryside to the dark underbelly of London"s criminal underworld.