E. W. Hornung

Ernest William Hornung (1866–1921) was an English novelist and short-story writer best known as the creator of A. J. Raffles, a gentleman thief who became one of the most distinctive characters in Victorian popular fiction. Hornung combined crime, adventure, humor, and social observation in his stories. Hornung was born on June 7, 1866, in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, England. He was the youngest of eight children in a prosperous family. His father, John Peter Hornung, was of Hungarian origin, while his mother, Harriet Armstrong, came from a local family. Hornung was educated at Rossall School in Lancashire. Because of poor health, he spent some time in Australia as a young man, an experience that later influenced his writing. After returning to England, he began working as a journalist and contributing stories and articles to various publications. In 1893, Hornung married Constance Aimée Monica Doyle, the sister of Arthur Conan Doyle. The marriage connected him closely with one of the most famous literary families of the period. Conan Doyle later became an important influence on Hornung, particularly in the development of his crime fiction. Hornung published his first novel, A Bride from the Bush, in 1890. He subsequently produced a large body of fiction, including novels and short stories dealing with adventure, romance, crime, and life in Australia and England. His early experiences abroad provided material for several of his works. Hornung's greatest success came with Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, published in 1899. The collection introduced A. J. Raffles, a charismatic upper-class cricketer who secretly earns his living as a thief. The stories are narrated by his companion and accomplice, Bunny Manders, whose perspective gives the series much of its humor and charm. Raffles was an unusual creation because Hornung deliberately made his central character a criminal while presenting him as intelligent, elegant, courageous, and socially sophisticated. The character became a popular counterpart to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Hornung even described Raffles as a kind of “criminal counterpart” to the detective hero. The Raffles stories continued in The Black Mask (1901), A Thief in the Night (1905), and later collections. Hornung also wrote several other novels, including Stingaree, a collection of Australian adventure stories that became another of his better-known works. During the First World War, Hornung's personal life was deeply affected by the death of his only son, Arthur Oscar, who was killed in action in 1915. Hornung subsequently devoted much of his time to wartime writing and charitable activities. His health declined in his later years. Hornung died on March 22, 1921, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France, while returning to England from Switzerland. He left a substantial body of fiction, but his lasting reputation rests chiefly on the Raffles stories, which helped establish the gentleman thief as a major figure in crime literature. Ernest William Hornung remains an important figure in the history of detective and adventure fiction. His elegant but morally ambiguous hero, A. J. Raffles, influenced later portrayals of sophisticated criminals and helped broaden the possibilities of the crime story beyond the traditional detective narrative.