Fergus Hume

Miss Mephistopheles

A Novel

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Miss Mephistopheles (1890) is a mystery novel by Fergus Hume. Although not as successful as The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), an immediate bestseller for Hume, Miss Mephistopheles is a gripping novel with forbidden romance and a tightly wound mystery worthy of the best of Victorian fiction. A sequel to Madame Midas (1888), a story of fortune and loss set in the shadow of Australia's nineteenth century gold rush, Miss Mephistopheles examines the solidarity between women abused and abandoned by men. Having lost her family fortune to a deceitful husband, Mrs. Villiers flees to Ballarat, where she turns her attention to managing her father's mine. Known to the local people as Madame Midas, she maintains a hard exterior in order not only to hide the truth of her past, but to guard herself from the cruelty of men. There, she rescues a young girl named Kitty Marchurst, a preacher's daughter misled by a wicked ex-convict. Raising her daughter Meg, Marchurst becomes a star in the Melbourne burlesque scene, acquiring wealth and fame beyond her wildest dreams. When her beloved diamonds are stolen, however, her world-and the city itself-threaten to come crashing down. Enmeshed in this mystery are an American insurance agent and Mrs. Villiers' estranged husband, shadowy figures who move in and out of respectable society looking for vulnerable marks. Miss Mephistopheles is a tale of violence and greed set in a country built on wealth gathered too quickly to last. This edition of Fergus Hume's Miss Mephistopheles is a classic of Australian mystery and detective fiction reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

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Produktdetails

• Mint Editions
• Verlag: Mint Editions
• Seitenzahl: 188
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. März 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 209mm x 132mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 299g
• ISBN-13: 9781513206240
• ISBN-10: 1513206249
• Artikelnr.: 62387902

Autorenporträt

Fergusson Wright Hume (1859 - 1932), known as Fergus Hume, was a prolific English novelist. Finding that the novels of Émile Gaboriau were then very popular in Melbourne, Hume obtained and read a set of them and determined to write a novel of the same kind. The result was The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, set in Melbourne, with descriptions of poor urban life based on his knowledge of Little Bourke Street. It was self-published in 1886 and became a great success. Because he sold the British and American rights for 50 pounds, however, he reaped little of the potential financial benefit. It became the best-selling mystery novel of the Victorian era; in 1990 John Sutherland called it the "most sensationally popular crime and detective novel of the century". This novel inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. Doyle remarked, "Hansom Cab was a slight tale, mostly sold by 'puffing'." After the success of his first novel and the publication of another, Professor Brankel's Secret (c.?1886), Hume returned to England in 1888. His third novel was titled Madame Midas and it was based on the life of the mine and newspaper owner Alice Ann Cornwell. This book became a play and her estranged husband, John Whiteman, sued over its content. Hume resided in London for a few years and then moved to the Essex countryside where he lived in Thundersley for 30 years. Eventually he produced more than 100 novels and short stories.