Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 20, 2015

E. W. Hornung (1866–1921) was an English author and poet who wrote the A. J. Raffles series of stories about a gentleman thief in late 19th-century London. After school in the UK, Hornung spent two years in Australia before returning to London. His first known work was published in 1887; his Australian experiences strongly influenced his early writing. In 1898 he wrote "In the Chains of Crime", which introduced Raffles and his sidekick, Bunny Manders; the characters were based partly on his friends Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and also on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the characters created by Hornung's brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle. The death of Hornung's son in the First World War brought an end to Hornung's storytelling, and led the writer to join the YMCA, initially in England, then in France, where he helped run a canteen and library and published two collections of poetry. After the war, he wrote more poetry and an account of his time in France. Hornung's fragile constitution was weakened by the stress of his war work, and he died at the age of 54. Although much of Hornung's work has fallen into obscurity, his Raffles stories continue to be popular, and have inspired numerous film and television adaptations. (Full article...)

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