Characters in Hornung's 1896 short story 'After the Fact' were prototypes for Raffles and Bunny. Rowland writes that Raffles and Manders were also fictionalised versions of Oscar Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.

Biographer Peter Rowland notes that these relationships are not shown until the second Raffles story collection, The Black Mask. Raffles is also shown to have romantic relationships with the Neapolitan girl Faustina (in 'The Fate of Faustina') and an artist using the name Jacques Saillard (in 'An Old Flame'). Snow, in a 1975 review, describes their relationship as juvenile and innocent but with homosexual undertones. Owen Dudley Edwards writes that Raffles and Bunny are 'an imitation of Holmes and Watson which is very obviously homosexual', while C. Ives was privately homosexual and although Hornung 'may not have understood this sexual side of Ives' character', Raffles 'enjoys a remarkably intimate relationship with his sidekick Bunny Manders'. Hornung and Ives played cricket for the Authors Cricket Club. The model for Raffles was George Ives, a Cambridge-educated criminologist and talented cricketer, according to Andrew Lycett. Turner, the cricket captain at Uppingham during 1882, Hornung's first year.

Raffles's initials are those of Hornung's housemaster at Uppingham School, A. Richard Lancelyn Green points out that Raffles shares his first name with Conan Doyle and with Hornung's son, Arthur Oscar Hornung. It has been suggested that Raffles's name may have been inspired by the title of Doyle's 1891 novel The Doings of Raffles Haw. Hornung was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes stories of his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle and dedicated The Amateur Cracksman to Doyle: 'To A. Raffles's adventures have been adapted across various media, the character played by a number of popular actors including John Barrymore and David Niven. Raffles is an expert thief and like Holmes, he is a master of disguise. Watson to chronicle his adventures, Raffles has Harry 'Bunny' Manders – a former schoolmate saved from disgrace by Raffles, whom Raffles persuaded to accompany him on a burglary.

He is called the 'Amateur Cracksman' and often, at first, differentiates between him and the 'professors' – professional criminals from the lower classes.Īs Holmes has Dr. Raffles is, in many ways, an inversion of Holmes – he is a ' gentleman thief', living at the Albany, a prestigious address in London, playing cricket as a gentleman (or ' amateur') for the Gentlemen of England and supporting himself by carrying out ingenious burglaries.

Hornung, brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Raffles) is a fictional character created in 1898 by E. Raffles (right) lock-picking with Bunny's assistance, by John H.

Aj raffles stories