Some thoughts on A J Raffles, Bunny Manders and A.C. Doyle.

Recently, I've been reading some old Victorian books

most recently, the AJ Raffles stories by E.W. Hornung. Hornung was Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's cousin, and he wrote the Raffles stories contemporary to Doyle, even dedicating his first novel The Amateur Cracksman "To ACD, A Form of Flattery."

Hornung wrote mostly short stories, with his Antihero Raffles pulling off burglaries and other nefarious deeds, including aiding and abetting two felons to escape. Honestly, Hornung's plotting and storytelling is not as good as Doyle's, but it suffices. The stories are interesting enough to hold the interest, but they just aren't as compelling as the Holmes tales. You probably won't sit up all night reading of Raffles and Bunny like you would have Holmes and Watson.
But then I got to thinking about Raffles and Manders. In their back-story, Manders and Raffles meet when the former is assigned (by whom?) to "Fag" for Raffles, an upperclassman. It should be noted here that in context, to Fag for someone is to take care of their mundane needs, such as shine their shoes, make their bed, clean their room and so on, unlike in the modern context where fag is a pejorative for a gay man. However, we come to see in Harry "Bunny" Manders (a childhood nickname) several traits commonly associated with gay men. Manders is effete, has to bolster his courage, panics easily, and is un-athletic, barely able to keep up with his partner, Raffles. At one point, he even goes all out to dress in drag as a prank for his friend Raffles. After his one romantic foray fails, Manders seems to have no use for women.  He's clearly in love with Raffles, even becoming jealous of him when he spends attention on others, and driving in a hansom across town after 1 am to save Raffles after the latter has accidentally poisoned himself. Okay, so most of these are fairly hackneyed stereotypes -- now. But were they so in the late 19th century ? Perhaps so. I certainly don't subscribe to the idea that all gay men act like that, but we're not talking about how I would write it, but about how Hornung wrote it. There have also been similar charges leveled at Doyle's Holmes and Watson -- that they were a homosexual couple -- charges even those who despise Holmes and Watson have pointed at with humorous denial. Holmes and Watson are not what I'd call fashionable upper-class youths (which Raffles and Manders very obviously are), but more middle class and amenable to actually working for a living, even though both act the part of Victorian Gentlemen. Holmes and Watson's association begins as a practical arrangement -- two can live as cheaply as one, it seems -- but Manders seeks out Raffles in an hour of desperation, and Raffles later seduces Manders into the life of crime. Does it suit Hornung's vision of criminals -- evildoers -- to paint his two central characters as gay ? Does that act somehow in Hornung's mind (and presumably in the mind of the 19th century reader) to complete the square of their evilness ? I am not actually well-educated enough in matters of E.W. Hornung's personality and thinking to tell. Perhaps it is.