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The shadowy father of Oscar

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From: The Spectator
Date: 19990918
Author:Glazebrook, Philip

The shadowy father of Oscar

Philip Glazebrook

RAFFLES AND HIS CREATOR

by Peter Rowland

Nekta Publications, 11.95, pp. 306

This audacious biography - the life of a writer who left no 'papers' - breaks new ground. 'A Person Unknown', his biographer calls E. W. Hornung, the creator of Raffles, `about whom the same sparse handful of facts has been recycled remorselessly.' So here we have a picture of Hornung drawn from scrutiny of his own fiction, worked upon by the biographer's imagination.

Take the influence of Oscar Wilde: assume (without evidence) that Hornung met him; further assume, ...

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