[In the following excerpt, Miller provides a survey of Hornung's works.]

Though domiciled in Australia for only a few years during early manhood, Ernest William Hornung preserved a close literary attachment. Nearly two-thirds of his books refer in varying degrees to Australian incidents and experiences. He was born at Middlesborough, England, in 1866, and educated at Uppingham School. Coming to New South Wales in 1884, he was engaged as a tutor by Charles Joseph Parsons, of Mossgiel Station. There he began to write his first book, A Bride from the Bush, according to Mr. C. F. Parsons, of Bloomfield, Tasmania. Some features of the station and its life appear in A Bride from the Bush, Tiny Luttrell and Irralie's Bushranger. On his return to England Hornung devoted himself to literary work. He served with the Y.M.C.A. during the war, and recorded his impressions in Notes of a Camp Follower on the Western Front, 1919. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who was Hornung's brother-in-law) quotes from this book in his preface to Hornung's posthumous work, Old Offenders, 1923. He chose a fine passage relating to the march of the Australians at Amiens:

They were marching in their own way—no strut or swing about it, but a more subtle jauntiness, a kind of mincing strut, perhaps not unconsciously sinister and unconventional, an aggressive part of themselves. But what men! What beetling chests, what muscle-swollen sleeves, what dark, pugnacious, clean-shaven faces!…

Hornung died in 1921 during a holiday in the South of France and was buried at St. Jean de Luz, according to Doyle, near the grave of George Gissing. Hornung is worthy of our remembrance for the persistence of his contact with Australia. The simplicity of his easy, light style is likely to deceive one as to its intrinsic worth. 'At his best,' ays Doyle, 'there is no modern who, by the sudden use of the right adjective and the right phrase, could make a scene spring more vividly to the eyes of the reader.'

As a rule the scenes of action in Hornung's novels move between England and Australia; in many instances, like Mrs. Campbell Praed, he brings his characters to the Old Country and so reverses a situation featured by the novelists of the emigration period. This is the case in The Bride from the Bush, 1890, which reveals the unhappy reactions of a vivacious Australian bride in the midst of an unbending English society, neither party being able to appreciate the other. The bride suddenly returns to the familiar surroundings of an Australian station. A more elaborate work is Tiny Luttrell, 1893. The opening scenes occur on a Riverina station, owned by the father of the heroine, Tiny' (Christina). Adroitly parting with her lover, the manager of the station, she goes to a married sister in England, where she meets again the Governor's A.D.C., who had jilted her in Melbourne; she declines his advances. Unadapted to the pettiness of English country society, Tiny is reconciled to the lover of childhood days. Its conventional construction robs the story of distinction. Another Anglo-Australian romance, Denis Dent, 1902, beginning on the Ballarat goldfields during the early 'fifties, shows a shipwreck off Cape Otway and Canvas Town in Melbourne.

Three novels introduce the 'guest' motif, beginning with The Unbidden Guest, 1894. Its country-scenes follow the upper reaches of the Yarra among the Dandenongs and beyond. Here a ballet-girl masquerades as the expected Yorkshire visitor to a Dandenong farm. An unexpected guest also comes into The Boss of Taroomba, 1894, a portion of which appeared in the Detroit Free Press. The story describes shearing methods as well as an attack by marauders. Another phase of the 'guest' motif is again taken up in My Lord Duke, 1897, which may be regarded as an incongruity in Australia. The heir to a dukedom is sought and apparently found in the person of an uncultured Australian stockman, who is sent home to enjoy his inheritance. The 'find' turns out to be a fake perpetrated by the real heir, who happened to be born in Hobart, where an interesting marriage is confirmed. Despite the humour of the story, it is unconvincing and out of harmony with the occasion, though two recent incidents in Canada and Australia show it to be not altogether without parallel.

Another Riverina romance is Irralie's Bushranger, 1896, showing the melodramatic impersonations of Stingaree, the bushranger. The story has a personal basis, for among the characters is a young tutor, fresh from an English public school; and Irralie and her brothers were born in Tasmania. Stingaree plays the title-rôle in Stingaree, 1905, which narrates, in detached episodes, his exploits in New South Wales. He dramatically introduces a new singer to the world and at the close surreptitiously meets her at Government House, Sydney, when at the height of her career. There are veiled references to Earl Beauchamp's governorship. Another bushranger provides an unanticipated feature in a station love-story, The Belle of Toorak, 1900.

Hornung attempted a semi-historical romance, The Rogue's March, 1896, more elaborate than usual with him and foreshadowing his novels of crime-mystery. The title was taken from a convict's letter, a quotation from which appears on the title-page. The events occur in 1838. The plot unfolds itself from a London love-episode which culminates in a mysterious murder. The denouement is worked out in New South Wales, where the guilty one and the innocent (who was convicted) meet. Hornung uses the occasion to describe the details of the convict system, which he had studied from original documents. The book lacks the arresting quality of Marcus Clarke's classical work, and is less entertaining than the easy-flowing stories which Hornung built up out of minor material. His storytelling powers were restrained by the historical reading imposed upon him; and the important features of the system are recorded in the manner of a treatise.

With the publication of The Amateur Cracksman, 1899, Hornung commenced a series of crime stories, surrounding the character of 'Raffles,' which established his reputation as a writer. The original volume of 1899 was reprinted in 1906 under the title of Raffles: the Amateur Cracksman. A second collection was entitled The Black Mask, 1901—also included in Raffles, 1906, followed by A Thief in the Night: The Last Chronicles of Raffles, 1905, and Mr. Justice Raffles, 1909. An omnibus volume, Raffles, was issued in 1929. The story of Raffles was dramatized and played by Gerald Du Maurier. Barry Perowne obtained the permission of Hornung's executors to carry on the careers of Raffles and Bunny. He did so in Raffles After Dark, 1933, Raffles in Pursuit, 1934, and She Married Raffles, 1936.

Raffles has a special interest for Australians. He is a test cricketer and some of his famous exploits occur during the progress of test matches. His sporting publicity is a screen for his explorations of the hoards of other people's wealth. He confesses that the first break upon his innocence took place in Melbourne and Whittlesea during the week-end adjournment of an All-England-Australian cricket match. The incident is recorded in the story entitled 'Le Premier Pas.,

The character of Raffles as a vicarious criminal, sometimes called the 'gentleman burglar,' is the most alluring of Hornung's studies. He sweeps through the spacious domains of illegal borrowing with the ease of a bird in flight. Acting with startling rapidity and audacious confidence, he dazzles the reader by his daring, even though it be in thin air, and by the very simplicity of the means he adopts to accomplish the impossible. He rings the changes on the moneylenders with the grace of a man conferring a social benefit upon mankind. But on coming back to reality, one feels that the character is too fantastic.