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Hornung's gentleman thief made his first appearance in print in
The Amateur Cracksman in 1899, a collection of tales succeeded
by another short story series, The Black Mask, in 1901, and in
1905, a final series, A Thief in the Night. In the latter volume,
Hornung, like several other authors before and since, decided
to put an end to his own literary creation. He came closer to
succeeding than Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes,
L. Frank Baum with the land of Oz, or Ian Fleming with James
Bond. In the final Raffles short story, partly out of patriotism,
partly in expiation for his life of crime, A. J. enlists along with
Bunny as soldiers in the Boer War, and during a battle, Raffles
is shot by enemy fire.
But four years later, in 1909, Hornung brought back his shady
pair in Mr. Justice Raffles, a novel that like Doyle's Hound of the
Baskervilles is not a resurrection but a reminiscence, a
postscript acknowledged as such in its final chapter. |
