Fergusson Wright Hume, known as Fergus Hume (1859 - 1932) was a prolific English novelist producing more than 100 novels and short stories. Finding that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were then very popular, he obtained and read a set of them and determined to write a novel of a similar kind. The result was the self-published novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), which became a great success. Hume based his descriptions of poor urban life on his knowledge of Little Bourke Street. It eventually became the best selling mystery novel of the Victorian era. This novel inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet. In this book: The Man with a Secret Miss Mephistopheles The Crimson Cryptogram The Red-headed Man The Vanishing of Tera The Piccadilly Puzzle The Girl from Malta The Gentleman Who Vanished