Fergus Hume was born in England in 1859 and raised in Dunedin, New Zealand. He studied Law at the University of Otago and after graduation relocated to Melbourne, Australia as a barristers' clerk. Inspired by the crime novels of Emile Gaboriau, he wrote the novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne, which became the best-selling mystery novel of the Victorian era. Hume returned to England in 1888, settling eventually in Thundersley in Essex, producing more than 100 novels and short stories. He died in 1932.