author
Hugh Wiley
b. 1884
Best remembered for creating the detective Mr. Wong, this American writer moved easily between humor, adventure, and mystery. His work reached both magazine readers and movie audiences, giving his fiction a long afterlife beyond the page.
1 Audiobook
Lady Luck
by Hugh Wiley
About the author
Born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1884, Hugh Wiley was an American writer whose fiction appeared in the early and mid-20th century. Reliable reference pages identify him as the creator of James Lee Wong, better known as Mr. Wong, a Chinese-American detective who appeared in a long run of magazine stories and later inspired a series of films.
Wiley also worked beyond detective fiction. Reference listings connect him with novels including The Wildcat and Lily, and film databases credit him as a writer on screen adaptations such as Fools First as well as the Mr. Wong movies. Some biographical sources also describe him as an engineer and note his military service in France during World War I.
He died in Berkeley, California, in 1968. While he is not as widely known today as some of his contemporaries, his Mr. Wong stories remain the clearest example of his knack for creating memorable popular fiction.