Conway

Conway, HUGH, the pseudonym of Frederick John Fargus, who was born in 1847, the son of a Bristol auctioneer. He adopted that pseudonym from the school frigate Conway, stationed on the Mersey, which he entered when he was thirteen for the purpose of training for a seafaring life. His father set his face against this, so young Fargus entered the auctioneer business, employing his leisure in writing clever newspaper verse and occasional tales. Some songs of his were accepted and published in 1878, a volume of verse in 1879; but it was the issue and rapid sale of his melodramatic story, Called Back, as vol. i. of Arrowsmith's Bristol Library (1884), which made him famous. Within five years 350,000 copies of this book had been sold. Fargus sold his share in the auctioneer's business in Bristol, and went to London, where he adopted the profession of authorship. His Dark Days followed, and just as in A Family Affair, and other works which he now produced in rapid succession, he had begun to show higher capabilities as a novelist, he died of malarial fever at Monte Carlo, 15th May 1885.