Stealing Sherlock’s starlight

A new character emerged in popular fiction in the 1890s. He was intelligent, a master of disguise, accompanied by a faithful assistant and unorthodox in every way. But it wasn’t Sherlock Holmes. It was the cricketer — and amateur cracksman — A.J. Raffles. Indeed, Raffles could be seen as a dashing alter-ego to the sober consulting detective. The connection between the two characters is further enhanced due to fact that the creator of Raffles, E.W. Hornung, was Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law.

Yet whereas Holmes has flourished for over a century (and one could argue that his popularity is greater now than ever) Raffles’s star has waned, or gone out completely for most people. Yet, ironically, the success of both the recent film and TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes is in part due to the famous detective borrowing certain traits from the gentleman thief. It was Raffles, far more than Holmes, who spoke in a clipped, aristocratic tone.