AustLit

E. W. Hornung, a successful writer of popular romance, crime and mystery fiction, spent most of his life in England and France, and only a couple of years in Australia, working as a tutor at Mossgiel station in the Riverina. However, his Australian experience is reflected in many of his works, such as A Bride from the Bush (1890), Tiny Luttrell (1893), Denis Dent (1903) partly set on the diggings in Ballarat, The Boss of Taroomba (1894), Irralie's Bushranger (1894), The Rogue's March (1896), The Belle of Toorak (1900), and a number of short stories. Hornung also created the character of A. J. Raffles, the 'polished gentleman burglar whose exploits begin in Australia' (Oxford Companion to Australian Literature) and on whom Graham Greene based his play The Return of A.J. Raffles : An Edwardian Comedy in Three Acts Based Somewhat Loosely on E.W. Hornung's Characters in The Amateur Cracksman (1975).

In 1893 Hornung married Constance (Connie) Doyle, sister of Arthur Conan Doyle. Their only child, a son, enlisted in the early days of the First World War and died at Ypres. Hornung himself then volunteered, in spite of increasingly poor health, and served as an ambulance driver, rest-station attendant, and officer in the YMCA services. Accounts of these activities were published in 1919 under the title Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front. He also published three short volumes of war poetry, and a memoir of his son's life. In broken health after the war, Hornung retired with his wife to the south of France and died in March 1921.