The astonishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became at once and for ever to him the great human and divine book, and the men and women, whom he had looked upon as something quite different from himself, became his friends and counsellors.

In 1847 Hughes was called to the bar and married Frances Ford. A. Hughes also wrote The Scouring of the White Horse (1859) Tom Brown at Oxford (1861) Religio Laici (1868) Life of Alfred the Great (1869) and the Memoir of a Brother.

It had a lesser-known sequel Tom Brown at Oxford (1861). Thomas Hughes (20 October 1822 – 22 March 1896) was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days (1857) a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School which Hughes had attended.