Hughes, Richard

Hughes, Richard, 1900–1976, English novelist. After graduating from Oxford in 1922, he helped found the Portmadoc Players and was for a time vice president of the Welsh National Theatre. In addition, he wrote several plays, notably The Sisters' Tragedy (1922). Hughes was best known for his first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica (American ed., The Innocent Voyage, 1929), a bizarre tale about a group of children captured by pirates; the chilling unease of the story derives from the evil apparent, not in the pirates, but in the children. In Hazard (1938), Hughes's next novel, was a sea story reminiscent of Conrad. The novels The Fox in the Attic (1961) and The Wooden Shepherdess (1972) remain tantalizing fragments of an uncompleted study of the inter-war years entitled The Human Predicament.

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Hughes, Richard (Joseph) (1909–92) governor, judge; born in Florence, N.J. A lawyer, he served as a New Jersey county and superior court judge before opening his own practice in 1957. As Democratic governor (1962–70), he fought unsuccessfully for a state income tax to improve the education system. As New Jersey Supreme Court chief justice (1974–79), he presided over the historic case that allowed Karen Ann Quinlan's parents to terminate her life-support system.