Hornung, E(rnest) W(illiam) (1866–1921)

English novelist. Prompted by Conan Doyle, he created A J Raffles, the gentleman burglar, and his assistant Bunny Manders, in The Amateur Cracksman (1899). Further collections of adventure stories include Raffles (1901), A Thief in the Night (1905), and Mr Justice Raffles (1909).

Hornung was born in Middlesbrough, northeast England. He lived in Australia 1884–86 and later wrote two novels with an Australian background, A Bride from the Bush (1890) and The Boss of Taroomba (1894). Returning to England, he married a sister of Conan Doyle in 1893. During World War I he travelled in France with a mobile library for the use of the troops, and later wrote Notes of a Camp Follower on the Western Front (1919).