Born in Ireland, Hogan arrived in Australia as an infant in 1856, when his family migrated to Melbourne and settled in Geelong. Hogan remained until 1887 and worked as a teacher and also as a journalist for the Victorian Review and the Argus. After his return to England he became a member of the House of Commons. He revisited Australia only once, for the inauguration of the Commonwealth in 1901.

In addition to his 'Australian' fiction - the Leichhardt novel The Lost Explorer and a collection of prose pieces, An Australian Christmas Collection - several of his non-fictional books deal with Australian topics and issues, as for instance The Australian in London and America (1889); The Convict King : The Life and Adventures of Jorgen Jorgenson (1891); The Gladstone Colony : An Unwritten Chapter of Australian History (1897); and a book on the Irish contribution to the development of Australia, The Irish in Australia (1887).