Cirrus@Austlit

'An arresting title, a striking cover and lively, flowing prose are likely immediately to engage and intrigue readers of this ‘biography’ of the murder mystery by Fergus Hume, which was published in Melbourne in 1886, in London in 1887, and widely thereafter and to this day. Lucy Sussex lays out the circumstances and introduces key players in the composition, publication, distribution and reception of what was a local and international publishing sensation. In so doing, she is putting living flesh on the bare bones of Pauline Kirk’s entry on Hume in the Australian Dictionary of Biography and amplifying brief references in Australian literary histories to his best-selling novel.' (Introduction)