Madame Midas (1888): One of Fergus Hume’s Attempts to Replicate Publishing Glory

Abstract

Abstract The year 2017 marked the eighty-fifth anniversary of the death of Fergusson (Fergus) Wright Hume (1859–1932). Best known for his hugely successful debut novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), set in Australia’s Melbourne, Hume went on to write many more works of fiction in the form of novels and short stories. These efforts resulted in a vast array of titles but none that captured the public imagination on a large scale and they are, today, mere curiosities of literary history. The closest that Hume came to replicating the publishing glory of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was with his Australian-based murder mystery Madame Midas (1888). This article briefly explores Madame Midas and, while noting the story’s modest successes as both a book and a stage play, offers feminist and nationalist-focused rationales for this work’s inability to generate the same levels of excitement that surrounded, and continue to surround, Hume’s first novel.