A. Egmont (Alfred Egmont) Hake

Born in Bury St Edmunds in 1849, Alfred Egmont Hake was an English author and social thinker from a literary family: his father was the poet and physician Thomas Gordon Hake, and his brother Thomas St. Edmund Hake also became a novelist. He published under the name A. Egmont Hake and wrote across several genres rather than staying in just one lane.

He is best remembered for works connected with Major-General Charles George Gordon, especially The Story of Chinese Gordon and his edition of The Journals of Major-Gen. C. G. Gordon, C.B., at Kartoum. Those books helped shape how many late-19th-century readers understood Gordon. Hake also wrote fiction, including Flattering Tales and The New Dance of Death, as well as nonfiction such as Paris Originals and Suffering London, which shows his interest in social questions and the conditions of everyday urban life.

That mix of biography, commentary, and reform-minded writing makes him an interesting figure for modern listeners: he was a writer with a clear feel for character, but also someone drawn to the larger moral and political debates of his time. He died in 1916.