E. W. Hornung Ernest William Hornung was an English author and poet who lived from June 7, 1866, to March 22, 1921. He was best known for writing the A. J. Raffles series of stories about a gentleman thief in London in the late 1800s. Hornung went to Uppingham Schol for his education. He quit because he was sick in December 1883 and went to Sydney, where he stayed for two years. He used his time in Australia as a starting point when he started to write, first short stories and then books. While writing "In the Chains of Crime" in 1898, he created the characters of Raffles and his sidekick, Bunny Manders. These characters were partly based on his friends Oscar Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and partly on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, characters created by his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1899, the series of Raffles short stories were put together in a book that could be bought. Two more books of Raffles short stories and a badly received novel came after. Besides writing stories about Raffles, Hornung was a great fiction writer who put out many books between 1890, when he wrote "A Bride from the Bush," and 1914, when he wrote "The Crime Doctor." Read More Read Less