This English illustrator was born in London and studied at the Royal Academy, where he became associated with the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Dalziel Brothers usually engraved him. Books illustrated by him include: an 1869 edition of Tom Brown's Schooldays; two books by Christina Rossetti; and George MacDonald's fantasy novels At the Back of the North Wind and The Princess and the Goblin (both 1871). In his illustrations for the first of these two novels, Hughes showed a remarkable ability to enter into the mind of the small hero, Diamond, and his reveries about the North Wind, a beautiful woman with long hair who seems to be both cruel and kind. Psychologically she is a mother figure, and Diamond is happiest when "nestling close to her grand bosom" (MacDonald lost his own mother during childhood). Because of these illustrations, Hughes became intimately associated in the public mind with MacDonald and his fantasies. Critics have noted that despite certain vagueness, there is always rhythm and beauty to his lines, and a certain wistful, idealistic quality - half of this world, half of the world of make-believe - akin to MacDonald, as well as a strange air of dreaming gravity in his children
