author
Hugh Conway
1847–1885
Best known for the sensation novel Called Back, this English writer rose from working in his family’s auction business to become a widely read Victorian storyteller. His success came late and fast, making his brief career feel all the more remarkable.
1 Audiobook
A Fortnight of Folly
by Maurice Thompson, Hugh Conway
About the author
Born Frederick John Fargus in Bristol on December 26, 1847, he wrote under the pen name Hugh Conway. Before becoming known as a novelist, he spent years in the family auctioneering business, eventually taking over the firm.
His breakthrough came with Called Back in 1883, a novel that became hugely popular and established him as a successful author in Britain and beyond. He followed it with other fiction, including Dark Days and A Family Affair, and for a short time was one of the most widely read popular novelists of the 1880s.
Conway died in Monte Carlo on May 15, 1885, while still only in his thirties. Because his literary fame arrived so quickly and his life ended so early, his career remains one of the more striking brief successes in Victorian popular fiction.