Hume Nisbet, a Scottish artist who studied art under Sam Bough, came to Australia in 1865, aged 16, and spent the next seven years travelling around the exploring the country. While in Melbourne he gained some theatrical experience under Richard Stewart, father of Nellie Stewart, an experience that enabled him to write stage episodes in The Bushranger's Sweetheart (1892).
On his return to Scotland in 1872 he was appointed to the position of Master of the Watt College of Art and Old Schools of Art, Edinburgh. He taught for a number of years, while also exhibiting his work at the Royal Scottish Academy and illustrating many books, including his own. In 1886 he was commissioned by Cassell and Company to travel back to Australia and New Guinea to obtain information for articles and sketches. His work was later published in Cassell's Picturesque Australasia (1887-89). He returned to Australia in 1895, and a decade later visited China and Japan (1905-1906). In the later part of his life he concentrated on writing novels.
Nisbet published more than forty books of fiction (many of which drew on his Australian experience), plays, verse, works on art and accounts of his travels. His themes were mainly historical and political, concerned with the treatment of Aborigines (see for example, The Savage Queen), Kanakas (The Divers) and convicts (The Black Drop), as well as with gold prospecting (The Swampers) and bushranging (Bail Up and The Bushrangers Sweetheart). Interestingly, The Swampers, in which he poured contempt on the Bulletin, was withdrawn in Australia when J. F. Archibald threatened legal action. He also delved into the fantasy, horror and science fiction genres, as can be seen in his 1895 novel The Great Secret.
'Wung-Ti', an Australian-born Chinese, was one of Nisbet's most interesting characters. He first appears in Bail Up (1890) and later in other novels and short stories. Nisbet has claimed to have met 'Wung-Ti' in Little Bourke Street, Melbourne in 1886. Nisbet frequently wrote prefaces to his books as a means of explaining his point of view or of defending himself against critics. His writing has described some phases of Australian colonial life that have not been prominent in the works of other contemporary writers. His verse, some of which is Australian in context, was published in several collections, Memories of the Months (1889), The Matador and Other Recitative Pieces (1893), and Hathor and Other Poems (1905).
Nisbet was the father of the artist Noel Laura Nisbet.
